Podcast: Roundtable Talk

QUOTES

“You’re only as young as your spine is flexible.” (Terry)

“When you start to avoid activities, your body kind of goes along with it and stops working in a youthful way.” (Terry)

“I’m on the tracks, off the tracks, and I think that’s real for most people.” (Terry)

“I have to remember that I’m not as young on the outside as I feel on the inside.” (Terry)

“I’d much rather age naturally. And yeah, it’s no fun, but I’m not alone in it.” (Terry)

“Enjoy each phase you’re in because movies and television are telling us stories about life, and it requires all age groups to tell these stories.” (Terry)

“We all have value. And that’s what you need to focus on—your own value.” (Terry)

“I’m enough. I’m whole just the way I am. I can stop being a chameleon.” (Terry)

NOTES

Terry Farrell is an actress best known for her role as Jadzia Dax on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and as Reggie on Becker. A former model turned sci-fi icon, Terry is also an advocate for self-acceptance, aging authentically, and embracing life’s many chapters.

After stepping away from acting to be a full-time mom, Terry is re-entering the entertainment world with a renewed sense of purpose and personal authenticity. She lives in New Mexico and hopes to pursue meaningful roles that reflect who she is today—whether in television, film, or even on stage.

Terry credits yoga and movement as essential for both mental and physical wellness as we age.

Terry embraces aging naturally, resisting industry pressure to look younger through surgery or cosmetic alterations.

After a long break to raise her son, Terry is re-entering the entertainment industry with new priorities, looking for roles that reflect her true age and life stage.

Terry believes culture is evolving and there are more opportunities now for actors of all ages, thanks in part to movements like #MeToo and greater diversity in storytelling.

Terry reflects on her modeling and early acting days, acknowledging the harmful body image pressures she endured and how she’s worked to let those go.

She finds encouragement seeing actresses her age on screen and admires projects that show women aging authentically, like Capote vs. The Swans.

Sci-fi storytelling, particularly Star Trek, helped Terry explore and embody themes of longevity, identity, and empathy, both on and off screen.

QUOTES

“A man’s got to know his limitations. And I knew that it would have made for a great story. But I was happiest in consulting, where I’ve been for 35 years.” (Scott)

“If you think about the organizations that have gotten themselves into trouble in our field, it’s usually because all three—strategy, vision, and innovation—have not occurred.” (Scott)

“When a CEO says to me, ‘I’m really not that good at vision or I’m uncomfortable with it,’ that’s when it can be addressed. It’s when they don’t that you end up in a situation where one, two, or all three are missing.” (Scott)

“Innovation isn’t just people sitting around thinking about cool stuff. It could happen, but it really takes work.” (Scott)

“If you look at the number of villages that have developed over the last 15 and 20 years, it’s phenomenal. But if you look at the business model, in a very rare instance, it doesn’t succeed without fundraising donations. So the business model is flawed.” (Scott)

“When I tell you that people hate nursing homes, I’m not exaggerating. If you get a group of new nursing home administrators in a room and you ask them about the potential for them to end up in a nursing home, most of them will say, ‘I’d rather be dead.’” (Scott)

“Most of the nursing home beds in the United States, including in the not-for-profit sector, are semi-private. That’s a euphemism—because there’s really nothing private about them. It’s inhuman. And actually, there’s a difference between inhuman and inhumane. It’s both.” (Scott)

“We have to focus because this is a heavy lift—societally a heavy lift—but it’s also a huge opportunity. If we don’t do these things, if we don’t focus, it’s the for-profit sector that’s going to take it away.” (Scott)

“The nonprofit governance model is a failed model because board members don’t ask tough questions. When you talk to them, it’s clear they’re critical thinkers in their profession, but when they get into the boardroom, that willingness disappears.” (Scott)

“You want to be ageist around a baby boomer? You’re going to pay the price.” (Scott)

“We should stop feeling the necessity to invent and instead look around. Take something that’s already there and figure out how to scale it.” (Scott)

“If I had to talk to my younger self, I’d say, ‘Get to know yourself, Scott. Don’t spend so much time trying to achieve. Spend some time trying to understand you, because then you might achieve more.’” (Scott)

NOTES

Scott Townsley is a senior living strategist and consultant with over 35 years of experience helping organizations navigate challenges and embrace innovation. A former attorney and long-time industry leader, he founded Third Age, was a partner at Clifton Larson Allen, and now serves as Senior Advisor to Trilogy Consulting.

Trilogy Consulting provides strategic guidance to nonprofit senior living organizations, focusing on vision, strategy, and innovation. The firm helps organizations adapt to industry shifts, rethink traditional models, and implement forward-thinking solutions to better serve aging populations. Trilogy Connect, a related initiative, fosters collaboration and knowledge-sharing among senior living leaders.

Trilogy emphasizes the intersection of strategy, vision, and innovation, noting that organizations that fail to integrate all three often struggle.

Scott began his career as a dishwasher in a senior living community, later becoming its general counsel and ultimately being offered the CEO position.

Lack of vision and innovation hinders the senior living industry. Many organizations operate on outdated models without adapting to changing demographics and consumer expectations, leading to financial and operational challenges.

Innovation requires commitment, not just ideas. True innovation isn’t just about brainstorming new concepts—it requires structure, investment, and a willingness to rethink outdated business models.

The nonprofit governance model is failing. Board members often avoid asking tough questions, which weakens decision-making. Compensation for board members could create a stronger sense of responsibility and accountability.

People hate nursing homes. Research shows that public perception of nursing homes is overwhelmingly negative, and even industry professionals often say they would rather die than live in one.

Semi-private nursing home rooms are inhumane. The standard practice of placing two, three, or even four people in a room is outdated and unacceptable. Small-house models like Green House have addressed this issue, but widespread adoption has been slow due to myths about financial feasibility.

Age-in-place programs need better messaging. Many Continuing Care at Home (CCaH) programs market themselves like long-term care insurance, which is a turnoff to consumers. Instead, they should emphasize their ability to keep people out of nursing homes.

The nonprofit senior living sector is losing ground to for-profit operators. If nonprofit organizations don’t adapt, they risk becoming irrelevant as for-profit providers scale faster and respond more aggressively to market demands.

The industry underutilizes data. Senior living communities could benefit from predictive modeling to anticipate residents’ needs, yet the sector remains far behind in leveraging data for proactive decision-making.

QUOTES

“Most people fell into these occupations. And once they started working in them, they discovered that they loved them.”  (Dr. Stone) 

“If we don’t invest in people, we are not going to get to the quality outcomes that we talk about.”  (Dr. Stone) 

“The best recruitment strategy is to retain, because the more that you retain your staff, the less you have to recruit.”  (Dr. Stone) 

“Technology hasn’t yet had a meaningful impact on frontline workforce challenges. We need to be more intentional about how we use it to support, not replace, the people doing the work.”  (Dr. Stone) 

“Taking the keys away from an older adult is one of the most disempowering things you can do. If self-driving cars can provide mobility while ensuring safety, I’m all for it.”  (Dr. Stone) 

“We’ve made strides in gerontology, but ageism and structural inequities still make it hard to attract people to the field.”  (Dr. Stone) 

“We are a muddling-through society. We inch forward incrementally, but we do eventually get there.”  (Dr. Stone) 

“We still have most people who think that Medicare covers long-term care. After 50 years in this field, that misconception still persists.”  (Dr. Stone) 

“I believe in public-private partnerships. The federal government should play a role in financing long-term care, but we also need private sector innovation.”  (Dr. Stone) 

“I have learned that change takes a long time and that it is more of a journey than a destination.”  (Dr. Stone) 

“On my best days, I remind myself: keep your eye on the prize. It’s easy to get discouraged, but progress is always happening, even if slowly.”  (Dr. Stone) 

NOTES

Dr. Robyn Stone is a nationally recognized expert in aging policy and long-term care. As Senior Vice President of Research at LeadingAge and Co-Director of the LeadingAge LTSS Center, she has dedicated her career to improving services, research, and policy that support older adults, particularly those with lower incomes.

LeadingAge is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing policies, practices, and research that support aging services. Through the LTSS Center, LeadingAge bridges the gap between policy, research, and real-world implementation to improve care quality, workforce development, and access to affordable housing for older adults.

Dr. Stone has spent 50 years in the field of aging, working in federal policy, nonprofit leadership, and research. She served in the Clinton administration’s health care reform task force and was part of the Pepper Commission, which explored long-term care financing solutions in 1989.

Her expertise spans workforce challenges, age-friendly communities, policy reform, and applied research to improve care models for older adults.

Aging services is often an “accidental career,” but once people enter the field, they realize they love it. Dr. Stone has spent her career trying to make it a more intentional professional path rather than something people stumble into.

The long-term care workforce crisis is fueled by low wages, structural inequities, and a lack of investment. Many direct-care workers are underpaid and undervalued, despite making up 60-80% of hands-on care. Increasing wages, training, and career pathways is critical to retention.

Technology in aging services hasn’t yet had a major impact on workforce issues. While electronic health records and digital tools help, most technology hasn’t reached frontline caregivers. The real opportunity is designing tech that supports workers rather than replacing them.

Many people still believe Medicare covers long-term care—when it doesn’t. Public understanding of long-term services and supports (LTSS) remains poor, leaving families unprepared. Dr. Stone advocates for better consumer education and policies that make care more affordable.

Self-driving cars could be a game-changer for older adults. Losing the ability to drive is disempowering, and if autonomous vehicles can restore independence while ensuring safety, they could be transformational for aging populations.

The U.S. is still catching up to other countries in how it plans for aging populations. Countries like Singapore and Denmark integrate aging into urban planning, creating built environments that support aging in place. The U.S. has opportunities to learn from these models.

COVID revealed the essential role of long-term care workers but hasn’t led to enough lasting change. While pandemic funding led to temporary workforce investments, sustaining higher wages and better career paths will require long-term policy shifts.

Change in aging policy takes time—but it happens. Dr. Stone sees progress in workforce recognition, gerontology as a field, and culture change in residential care. While she calls herself a “pessimistic optimist,” she believes incremental change leads to lasting impact.

QUOTES

“The whole concept of anti-aging is somewhat misguided because aging is a biological process. It’s a bit like anti-breathing where we suddenly decided that it’s inconvenient to have to take 20 breaths a minute.” (Dr. Katz)

“Longevity is a laudable goal. A bounty of years and life. Vitality is perhaps an even more laudable goal. A bounty of life and years.” (Dr. Katz) 

“If we buy into the value proposition of anti-aging, it sort of invites a morbid fear of our own mortality.” (Dr. Katz) 

“There comes a day when you’re on the other side of the summit and starting to descend and you’ll never be better than you ever were before by some physical measure. But you know things that you didn’t know back then. You’ve experienced things.” (Dr. Katz)

“Experience comes with the passage of time, as does aging.” (Dr. Katz)

“I’m not going to be anti-aging. I want to embrace aging because it is imparting gifts on me. It exacts a toll, but it also imparts gifts. That give and take reorients us.” (Dr. Katz) 

“Imagine if our society had a whole slew of periodicals and magazines that are all about the reflections, storytelling, wisdom and life experience of older people. And we celebrate that the same way that we do the beauty of young actors and actresses.” (Dr. Katz) 

“Diet quality, measured objectively, is the single leading predictor in the United States today from all causes. In other words, if you could fix just one thing to decrease the likelihood that you’re going to die prematurely, it would be your diet quality.” (Dr. Katz) 

“The simple reality is, we’re not a very healthy nation. We have systematically neglected the fundamentals of health. Diet quality in the U.S. is poor – it’s the single leading predictor of death from all causes – we’re nearly as physically active as we should be. We have too much exposure to toxic substances. We don’t get enough sleep. We’re stressed out and we’re not good at mitigating stress and the internet and social media have interfered with our social connections with other people.” (Dr. Katz) 

“We can control ship and sail. We can be masterful captains of the ship of our medical destiny but we’ll never control wind and wave.” (Dr. Katz) 

“If we hope to deemphasize the role of big pharma in what gets marketed to elders, we need healthier elders. And in order to have healthier elders we need a healthier us. All of us. Because health begins early in life.” (Dr. Katz) 

NOTES

Dr. David Katz is a globally recognized expert in nutrition, wellness, and longevity. As the Founding Director of the Yale Prevention Research Center, he has dedicated his career to advancing lifestyle medicine and disease prevention. 

The Yale Prevention Research Center is dedicated to advancing disease prevention and public health through innovative research and community-based interventions. 

A prolific author and passionate advocate for public health, Dr. Katz has written extensively on how diet and lifestyle impact long-term well-being—including his thought-provoking article, “Rage at Aging.”

Dr. Katz’s work challenges conventional thinking about aging, urging people to prioritize health span over life span. With deep expertise and bold insights, Dr. Katz continues to shape the conversation on living better, longer. 

Dr. Katz discussed the challenge of getting older as it pertains to technology and other advancements, saying “Instead of being venerated in old age for our wisdom and experience, we’ll look around and say ‘What the hell is going on here?’”

QUOTES

“Another principle that’s near and dear to my heart is the idea of promoting intergenerational connections. A college campus is uniquely positioned to connect generations around a shared love of learning.” (Lindsey)

“Universities should recognize a range of educational needs for older learners.” (Lindsey)

“21st century universities are highly technology enabled. How do we think about supporting people with technology barriers. We need to think about how to close that digital divide for learners of all ages.” (Lindsey) 

“There is no boundary or barrier between the (retirement) community and the campus community. We have students in the (retirement community) building all the time. We want that. We also have residents on the (college) campus all the time. These are the kinds of organic exposures and interactions that I feel are the most powerful part of this model.” (Lindsey) 

“Older people have forgotten what it’s like to be young but also young people have not developed the skills to project their future selves, which is so important. It means that you can make decisions now that will benefit the future version of you.” (Lindsey) 

“So many folks at 75 no longer identify with their careers. They no longer want to say ‘I’m a retired physician or a retired real estate broker’ they want to say ‘I’m a learner, I’m a mentor, I’m whatever it is I’m doing now.’ They have value now and post career identity and I think that’s what that student ID card represents.” (Lindsey) 

“We bring the university to (the community residents). You can really say that you get what you need in terms of care as you age but also you get what you want in terms of learning and enrichment and intellectual stimulation.” (Lindsey) 

NOTES

Lindsey is on the Executive Council of the Age Friendly University Global Network and is Senior Director of Lifelong University Engagement at Mirabella at Arizona State University. 

Lindsey works at the intersection of higher education and senior living, creating opportunities for senior living residents to fully immerse themselves in campus life at Arizona State University. With a background spanning the Peace Corps, aging services, and higher education, Lindsey is redefining what it means to age with purpose. 

Mirabella at Arizona State University is a luxury retirement community blending vibrant senior living with lifelong learning. Located on ASU’s Tempe campus, it offers residents cultural events, educational opportunities, and upscale amenities, fostering intergenerational connections.

Mirabella as ASU is the first certified university-based retirement community in the nation. It’s a 20-story Life Plan Community located on ASU’s campus, opened in December 2020. The community includes 238 independent living units, 17 assisted living units, 20 memory care units and 21 skilled nursing units.

Merging higher education with senior living might seem unusual, but this fusion can disrupt and redefine both fields. The concept of a university-based retirement community exemplifies how bringing together two distinct industries can lead to groundbreaking innovations and new possibilities.

While in grad school at ASU, Lindsey noticed her classmates accumulating significant debt due to high housing costs. This led her to start a home-sharing agency in Phoenix to match older homeowners with college students, allowing students to rent a room in exchange for household chores. 

University-based retirement communities are gaining popularity, and there are compelling reasons for this trend. The baby boomer generation, being the most educated retiree cohort ever, has a strong nostalgia for its college years. 

Quotes

“I was really surprised to learn how large a population solo agers are. What was most valuable in terms of the advice for me is that solo agers face the same issues that everybody else faces.” (Diane) 

“Solo agers have to approach planning with an extra layer of intentionality and urgency.” (Diane)

“Most of us just assume our spouses or kids will step in. Solo agers can’t assume.” (Diane) 

“Aging in place is tough. It can be lonely, it can be expensive if you’re on your own. You might think about making a change in where you live. Maybe an adult community.” (Diane) 

“The classic mistake that solo agers make in choosing someone as their healthcare proxy or power of attorney is they choose a peer. Someone their own age. […] The ideal person is someone who might be a generation younger.” (Diane) 

“The number one regret people have when it comes to their retirement is not starting to save sooner and not starting to save enough.” (Diane) 

“Fidelity estimates that the average person will need $165,000 to cover healthcare costs in retirement.” (Diane) 

“Maybe you’re not working full time, but you’re working part time. Even if you work half the time that you used to or a quarter of the time at something that is easier to do healthwise […] it can help you delay taking Social Security and it can help delay tapping into your savings.” (Diane) 

Notes

Diane is an award winning journalist, a well-traveled speaker and an author with an expertise in personal finance and financial wellness. She’s a former editor-in-chief of Money Magazine and a former deputy editor of Newsweek. 

She recently wrote an article for the New York Times about solo agers titled “Retiring Solo: How to plan when you’re on your own”. 

Diane’s advice for solo agers is start with your existing network and work outwards. She also recommends looking for ways to follow your interests – movies, photography, books – where you might meet people of different ages and backgrounds. She also recommends looking to neighbors to build relationships and community. 

Sitting down with a financial advisor, even for a one-time session, can be incredibly helpful for solo agers or anyone hoping to gain some financial clarity when it comes to retirement. 

Solo aging can have upsides, too. Diane notes an AARP survey in which respondents replied that being a solo ager gives you independence, a feeling of satisfaction, happiness and freedom. 

Diane delivered a keynote address at an AARP event titled  “WTF! (What the Financial!): A Financial Empowerment Roadmap.” In that keynote address, she talked about financial longevity and retirement. 

Diane advises that if you are younger than 65 and you’re thinking of retirement, you might think again. Covering healthcare costs before you quality for Medicare is very expensive. 

Diane is an advocate of part time work to help with finances in retirement. She’s cautious about full-time work as a catch-all for financial stability. Instead you suggested that retirees “keep a hand in the workforce—not your whole body.”

Transcript

00:00:02.48

VARSITY

Hello and welcome to another episode of Varsity’s Roundtable Talk. Today’s guest is Diane Harris. Diane is an award-winning journalist, a well-traveled speaker, and an author with an expertise in personal finance and financial wellness. She’s a former editor-in-chief of Money Magazine and a former deputy editor of Newsweek. And finally, she’s a regular contributor to the New York Times. Diane, thank you so much for joining us today.

 

00:00:25.63

Diane Harris

I’m delighted to be here, Derek. Thank you for having me.

 

00:00:28.29

VARSITY

Absolutely. Well, our interview today is gonna tackle two topics that you’ve written and spoken about recently. Solo aging and financial security during retirement. And then there’s there’s a third topic at the end, but we’ll get to that later. We’re gonna start with solo aging. You wrote a terrific piece for the New York Times just in September of this year in 2024 called Going Solo, how to plan for retirement when you’re on your own.

 

00:00:55.95

VARSITY

Now, in that article, you talked with Dr. Sarah Zeff Geber, who coined the phrase solo aging, and who I’ve interviewed recently on this podcast, as well as Joy Laverde, who we’ve also worked with as a guest on our weekly roundtable discussions. And both are great resources. Now, in your solo aging art research, did any advice or strategies from Dr. Geber, Joy, or any other experts surprise you or stand out as particularly valuable?

 

00:01:23.50

Diane Harris

Yeah, you know, absolutely. It was a fascinating topic. I was really surprised to learn, you know, how large a population solo-agers are. And I’m glad that we’re getting the chance to talk about this. What was most Not surprising, but valuable in terms of the advice for me was that, you know, solo-agers face the same issues that everybody else faces as we age. You have to think about who is going to take care of you if something happens, who are your designees for health care and things like that.

 

00:02:08.46

Diane Harris

But you without a person who you can rely on to turn to, it’s the circumstances, different circumstances that mean different solutions. And so what experts stress to me is that solo-agers have to approach planning with an extra layer of intentionality and urgency. And that phrase really stuck with me. That’s what I think is the most valuable takeaway.

 

00:02:38.64

Diane Harris

It’s not that the issues are different. It’s that different circumstances may dictate different solutions, and that you have to approach the whole thing with an extra layer of urgency and intentionality.

 

00:02:52.98

Diane Harris

like Most of us just assume or spouses our or kids will step in. That’s not always right, but we assume it.

 

00:03:02.48

VARSITY

That’s exactly, that’s that’s a great point.

 

00:03:02.54

Diane Harris

So the wagers can’t assume.

 

00:03:05.51

VARSITY

And the other thing that I found to be fascinating was when I heard the term solo-ager or when I think of that, I think of truly an individual, someone who is is solo, whereas Dr. Geber in the conversations we had with her, she was really defining it as someone without children or without that natural support network.

 

00:03:24.00

VARSITY

So they may have a spouse, but they don’t have you know have children who,

 

00:03:24.45

Diane Harris

Yes.

 

00:03:29.34

VARSITY

you know in theory might you know provide that support, but we know that doesn’t always happen either.

 

00:03:33.44

Diane Harris

Right, right. I mean, i and I think that part of the value of this story for people who aren’t solo-agers is understanding that. Like this advice is relevant to everyone because some of the assumptions we make about who will take care of us don’t always turn out to be the case.

 

00:03:57.12

VARSITY

Great point. Great point. Now you discussed the importance, as you were just sharing, of having that trusted support network. Solo agents often don’t have the support. What are some ways to build that network that you have uncovered or or thought about?

 

00:04:11.81

Diane Harris

Yeah, so one of the things is to to start simply by looking at your existing network. Look at the community that you belong to from you know hobby groups that you might be involved in, places of worship, a community center, and look for ways and people whose relationships you might enhance or expand. Start with your existing network and kind of work outwards. So that’s one thing to start with.

 

00:04:47.76

Diane Harris

Another piece of advice that didn’t make it into the New York Times story that I that that i thought was great is to think about like often, who do we hang out with? We hang out with friends and they tend to be our same age. So their peers. Instead of hanging out with people by age, by you know by our peers, look for ways to follow your interests.

 

00:05:13.80

Diane Harris

If you’re a movie lover, an amateur photographer, you join a book club, whatever it is that you’re interested in doing, but do it by the activity where you may meet people of different ages and different backgrounds. So you have a more diverse group, a more diverse community, and then look to your neighbors, to the people you regularly interact with,

 

00:05:43.95

Diane Harris

The single most important thing, though, probably is where you live, is thinking intentionally, again, about where you live. Because that can create a community.

 

00:05:55.59

Diane Harris

if your you know People often say they want to age in place. But aging in place is tough.

 

00:06:01.88

VARSITY

Sure.

 

00:06:02.32

Diane Harris

It can be lonely. It can be expensive if you’re on your own and having You know, as you get older and it’s a little harder to do things, you have to hire people to do them for you. So you might really think about making a change in where you live to maybe it’s an adult community, you know, for people 55 and older, where you have a built-in community and lots of services often are available to you, a continuing care community.

 

00:06:30.72

Diane Harris

Joy Laverde, who you mentioned, big advocate of NORX,

 

00:06:33.69

VARSITY

Yep.

 

00:06:37.12

Diane Harris

naturally occurring retirement communities, where you might be in an apartment building that has people of all different ages and backgrounds and services that are available to seniors and community events, and you naturally build a network of people who look out for one another. So those are some of the ways to strengthen your community and your network.

 

00:07:03.47

VARSITY

That’s great. And you mentioned you know earlier and in in in your thoughts about enhancing your network. And I think that was a really interesting term. And it almost made me think, you know enhancing the relationships, I think that was maybe how you had had said it. And yeah relationships about the core is a two-way street, right? And I love the idea of going into some of your interest groups because then you are connecting on a much deeper level, perhaps.

 

00:07:30.67

Diane Harris

Yes.

 

00:07:31.08

VARSITY

it’s you know It’s not tethered by simply proximity, but it’s tethered by something that really has an equal exchange of intellect.

 

00:07:39.58

Diane Harris

Right. And it’s also, you know, I love the possibilities for intergenerational community.

 

00:07:49.52

VARSITY

Absolutely.

 

00:07:50.17

Diane Harris

It’s so helpful to both sides of that equation. You know, not just from the practical, okay, I’m looking for people who can help me out if something happens to me, but just for socialization and what you can learn from one another.

 

00:07:58.95

VARSITY

Right.

 

00:08:05.11

Diane Harris

like I’m someone who is, I’m not a solo ager.

 

00:08:06.19

VARSITY

Sure.

 

00:08:08.03

Diane Harris

I’m just your garden variety married with adult children ager.

 

00:08:12.38

VARSITY

sure

 

00:08:13.05

Diane Harris

But I’m lucky enough to have a community and a network that is truly intergenerational. And I think it’s a tremendous it’s just a tremendous benefit socially, professionally, and just in terms of keeping you vibrant and vital in our world.

 

00:08:35.60

VARSITY

That’s great. That’s great. Now, you know as we’re talking about this, many soloagers struggle with choosing someone to make medical or financial decisions for them.

 

00:08:42.75

Diane Harris

Yes.

 

00:08:44.29

VARSITY

What qualities do you think are most important when selecting these types of of relationships for yourself?

 

00:08:49.88

Diane Harris

Yeah, so experts really emphasized me. And it made sense, it’s kind of an an aha moment when once they said it to me that the classic mistake that soloagers make in choosing someone as their health care proxy or the power of attorney is to choose a peer, someone who is their own age, very often, I mean,

 

00:09:15.74

Diane Harris

people who are partnered will choose a spouse or if they have adult children they’ll choose an adult child. The most common choice for a solo-ager is a sibling and a sibling is likely to be you know within a few years of you and face the same challenges of aging as you do. So the ideal person is someone who might be a generation younger

 

00:09:44.09

VARSITY

that’s really smart

 

00:09:44.15

Diane Harris

someone who is mature enough to handle the responsibility and understanding of what you might be facing, but younger, so is not facing the same challenges, might be a niece or a nephew or a much younger cousin or the child of a cousin, you know, thinking along those lines.

 

00:10:05.36

Diane Harris

And then you really need to find someone

 

00:10:07.08

VARSITY

that’s really smart

 

00:10:10.55

Diane Harris

who is willing to do it, who is willing to take on the responsibility. Very often, if we can get ourselves to make the choice, we don’t do the second beat of that, which is talk to the person and make sure they’re on board because you don’t always know. And then you want to revisit.

 

00:10:32.53

Diane Harris

every couple of years because circumstances change, their circumstances do, your circumstances do, the person who made sense two years ago may not be the person who makes sense today.

 

00:10:35.12

VARSITY

That’s a great point.

 

00:10:43.90

Diane Harris

So those are some of the things you want to think about.

 

00:10:46.79

VARSITY

That’s a great point. And, you know, I know it gets, it’s probably a little touchy, but the vetting process, because you know, somebody as a friend or you know whatnot but to turn over such personal decisions to them like medical or financial. you know Any thoughts on that? I realize it’s very particular for each individual situation. but

 

00:11:09.79

Diane Harris

Well, I think, yeah, I know I think that’s a great, that’s a great question. And I think that, you know, one of the things that we as personal finance experts tell people all the time when they’re doing a will or you want to write down what you want to happen, what your wish list is for your care.

 

00:11:36.51

Diane Harris

but also personal things like, you know, how you want your pet taken care of for, you know, just, you know, the whole gamut of things. And so I think when you’re vetting someone,

 

00:11:49.11

Diane Harris

You want to have those thoughts in mind and you want to have that discussion like, this is what I want. Would you feel comfortable doing this? you know If you want them to run a second opinion by someone, you know here’s who I’d want you to talk to.

 

00:12:06.57

Diane Harris

Would you do that for me? You really have to kind of get, I don’t know if down and dirty is the right expression, but kind of, right?

 

00:12:12.03

VARSITY

Sure.

 

00:12:14.37

Diane Harris

like you really You have to be willing to go there And the payoff for going there is that you will feel so much more comfortable. And then you’ve set you can set it and forget it for a little bit of time.

 

00:12:29.56

VARSITY

Sure.

 

00:12:29.70

Diane Harris

And you have that peace of mind.

 

00:12:33.08

VARSITY

that’s yeah Those are excellent points, and my wife and I just revisited our will, and you know as we were doing that, realized how incredibly outdated it was you know when we did it, when our son was quite young.

 

00:12:42.57

Diane Harris

Yeah.

 

00:12:45.35

VARSITY

but So you know there are a lot of concerns and that we’ve been talking about that solo-agers have, and financial security is, of course, a big one. They don’t have the immediate family members to rely on for the financial support should immediate emergencies come along for long-term care.

 

00:12:56.48

Diane Harris

Yep.

 

00:13:00.55

VARSITY

Without that traditional family support, how can solo agers create a financial safety net?

 

00:13:05.48

Diane Harris

Yep.

 

00:13:05.50

VARSITY

I know that’s a major part of what you know do write about and have kind of studied over the years, if you will. But really to cover those financial you needs in the future or for emergencies, and how is that maybe different from what you know people who aren’t solo agers, what they might do?

 

00:13:24.24

Diane Harris

Yeah. Well, I think that it’s certainly true that it’s critical. And solo-agers do have particular challenges when it comes to money. They tend to have less in income because it’s one income versus verses two. And they tend to have less in savings. So they have fewer assets to work with.

 

00:13:48.49

Diane Harris

And that means, again, like you have to be extra special careful. It’s back to that intentionality and the urgency. So there are a couple of things that I would suggest.

 

00:13:58.52

Diane Harris

First of all, not having money for emergencies is the thing that causes the most anxiety in everyone.

 

00:14:08.29

VARSITY

Sean.

 

00:14:08.69

Diane Harris

Solo-ager, young person, like just across the board, research shows that the thing that gives us the most financial anxiety is the feeling that we’re one emergency away from financial disaster.

 

00:14:23.35

Diane Harris

so thing a plan for emergencies. It goes beyond, you know, the traditional advice of an emergency fund. It’s really thinking through, like, what are the what ifs? What could happen? Having a plan and a sense of control, like who you could turn to, if you had to move, you know, like, where would you go? Could you downsize? Like, going through the what ifs is as important as having an emergency fund because you want to have a sense of control.

 

00:14:52.74

Diane Harris

An emergency fund, just having some money set aside for emergencies, is critical. The way to do that, if you’re still working, you know open an account that’s dedicated to that, that says, my emergency fund. Because money that you have labeled for a specific purpose is money that you’re likely to not touch. And then automate from your paycheck You can do it through your bank, through your employer, just whether it’s $50 a week, $25 a week, a certain amount of money that goes into that account. And then the other thing you want to do is you don’t want to use it, but you want to have it available to you, lines of credit. If you own your own home, a home equity line of credit that you don’t tap, but it’s your emergency fund if you had to tap it. And a credit card.

 

00:15:45.81

Diane Harris

that you then put in the freezer in a block of ice you know and that you never use, but that it’s there for you if you need it. And just knowing what you would do, where you could turn, brings peace of mind. Oh, I’m sorry. One other thing that I just want to say is that sitting down for a one-time session with a financial advisor to go through all of that is another way of creating a safety net. And there are a lot of pro bono resources if you can’t afford it.

 

00:16:15.97

Diane Harris

Often your local area on aging, your local agency on aging can suggest pro bono planners who will do it, local senior center, AARP, so you can get free help.

 

00:16:31.80

VARSITY

Great. Good thoughts, good suggestions. And you know it is just the whole notion of sitting down and thinking through it so that if something does happen, when your mind is racing and you can’t focus, at least knowing where to start and having something, even if it was a year or two before that you jotted it down, just having that to start with, I think you know would be comforting for a lot of people.

 

00:16:47.81

Diane Harris

Yes.

 

00:16:56.15

Diane Harris

Yes.

 

00:17:02.23

VARSITY

and So you know when we’re talking about solo aging, we’re and we’ve been talking a lot about you know some of the negative or stressful aspects, in writing the article, were you able to uncover any benefits or positive things about being a solo ager?

 

00:17:16.32

Diane Harris

I am so glad you asked that question. Absolutely. In fact, there was an AARP study, I think it was last year, about solo aging. And they asked respondents for you know their feelings about being a solo ager. And the first three responses were all positive.

 

00:17:36.02

Diane Harris

it was you know surprising independence and feeling satisfied and happy with their lives. And the number one positive aspect was freedom.

 

00:17:47.83

Diane Harris

So you know there are benefits to not having to run what you want to do by somebody. If you want to travel, you can travel. you know Whatever your idea of an ideal retirement or just you know what you want to do as you grow older, you don’t have to compromise. You don’t have to get anybody’s permission. you know So there’s a great freedom in that. And I think that that’s a huge benefit.

 

00:18:16.45

Diane Harris

you know for solo agents.

 

00:18:19.26

VARSITY

Great point. Good. So now I’m curious, what are you looking forward to as you age?

 

00:18:25.55

Diane Harris

I am looking forward to sort of, you know I hate to be a cliche, I feel like I’m looking forward to the things you always hear people look forward to, but you know the most precious commodity to me is time.

 

00:18:39.31

VARSITY

Yep.

 

00:18:41.27

Diane Harris

So I am looking forward to, you know, I still work full time and full throttle full time. So I’m looking forward to slowing down a little bit. I’m looking forward to time to be more present for the people who I care about, to be able to be more in the moment to take walks and to, you know, like just all of that stuff just to take life a little at a little bit of a slower pace to be more present for the people who I care about, including myself.

 

00:19:20.89

Diane Harris

And to travel. I really do want to travel. And I haven’t I haven’t done a lot of that. So I feel a little bit like a cliche, but truly,

 

00:19:31.02

VARSITY

But hey, there’s a reason there’s a reason for that, right? And you know I mean, what are they?

 

00:19:33.27

Diane Harris

Yeah. And also I have a couple of passion projects that I, you know, so I have a, a movie, an idea for a movie that I’ve had since I left graduate school.

 

00:19:50.89

VARSITY

Interesting.

 

00:19:51.04

Diane Harris

So here’s an idea I’ve been nursing for more than 30 years, for more than 40 years., and I would love to be able to do a magazine article and see if I could get it done.

 

00:20:02.78

Diane Harris

If I could get someone to look at a treatment, it’s based on a true story. I’m surprised that nobody has picked it up. I think it has Clooney pit, then Affleck like that, that, that sort of thing all over it.

 

00:20:19.83

Diane Harris

So there’s one.

 

00:20:20.16

VARSITY

Very cool. That’s great. I can’t wait to see how that comes about. So shifting gears, you had done a keynote at a recent AARP event. And you spoke earlier this year in New York about financial longevity and retirement. And in this speech, you paused for some reassurance and a promise.

 

00:20:44.77

VARSITY

And you said that no matter where someone is in their financial journey, you can come up with strategies to make your money last your lifetime. So for those who may have begun saving later than ideal, what advice do you have to help them maximize their savings now?

 

00:21:01.21

Diane Harris

First of all, I really and truly believe that wherever you are, there are steps that you can take and I think it’s critical for people to understand that because the number one regret people have when it comes to their money in retirement is not starting to save sooner and not starting to save enough.

 

00:21:18.97

Diane Harris

And it’s important for people to realize, first of all, that everyone shares that, me too, even though I do this for an actual living. You know, I have, I often say, and I said it, I think in this, in this speech that believe me because I’ve done this for 40 years and I’m an actual expert, but also because I personally made every mistake there is to make when it comes to your money and I’m living proof you can bounce back.

 

00:21:44.50

Diane Harris

So that’s true when it comes to getting a late start on savings. If you’re still working, What you want to do right now is pump it up you know to use that old SNL sketch.

 

00:21:56.53

VARSITY

Sure.

 

00:21:57.37

Diane Harris

So ah you know whatever you can do right now, the first thing is if you’re working for a company that offers an employer-sponsored plan and it has a match and you are not contributing up to the match, like there is no excuse.

 

00:22:15.83

Diane Harris

You’ve got to do that right away. And one of the benefits of getting older is that it you often have to wait when you’re younger to vest, and people move companies a lot, and you might be afraid of layoffs.

 

00:22:29.49

Diane Harris

When you reach full retirement age, you’re automatically vested in those contributions. So even if you’ve been at that company for a month, you get the full match.

 

00:22:38.15

VARSITY

Interesting.

 

00:22:41.32

Diane Harris

So there’s nothing you have to worry about. you know It’s 100% return on your money, so do that. If you’re already doing that and you have the wherewithal to save more, really just pump it up to what you can. People 50 and older can contribute more than younger people. There are catch-up contributions. Starting next year, there’s going to be a special supersizing catch-up contribution for people between the ages of 60 and 63.

 

00:23:11.15

Diane Harris

So you can do even more. I mean, it gets up to crazy amounts of money, like over 30,000 for that 60 to 63. And you know my feeling is if you have enough to contribute that much, you probably are not that worried about but retirement savings. But the idea is to do as much as you can. And when you do it automatically, you often automatically adjust your budget so you don’t feel it. So that’s the that’s the first thing.

 

00:23:40.77

Diane Harris

I would also say you have to look for ways to reduce your expenses to create the possibility of saving.

 

00:23:40.88

VARSITY

That’s.

 

00:23:53.07

Diane Harris

And the number one thing that I would say in this regard, there are lots of smaller things that you can do. And I have done them and you can talk about them. But if you are someone who still has an active open branch of the bank of mom and dad for adult children, you’ve got to think about shutting that sucker down. I mean, again, this is something that I’ve done even, you know, against my own advice that your children you want to do right by them, you want to give them a good launch in life. But research shows that it really, really hurts people’s ability to save for retirement, to retire when they want to. So that’s the number one thing, is to start thinking about shutting down the bank of mom and dad.

 

00:24:44.23

VARSITY

That’s a great point. And you know it is just so, so you’re probably you’re right, something that nobody wants to.

 

00:24:47.17

Diane Harris

 

 

00:24:52.69

VARSITY

do They want to feel as if they’re being good parents. But at some point, you’re probably being a better parent by focusing on your own financial security so that your child doesn’t have to worry about you later in life.

 

00:25:03.44

Diane Harris

Yeah, absolutely. And also helping them towards it towards true independence. I mean, if if you want to reassure yourself that you’re actually doing the right thing as a parent, there it is. I mean, it’s part of our responsibility to help them truly launch and be able to do things on their own.

 

00:25:23.30

VARSITY

That’s great. That’s really smart. Thank you. So we know health care is a huge expense in retirement. How can retirees plan for health care costs and to avoid depleting their savings?

 

00:25:34.00

Diane Harris

Yeah, I mean, it’s it’s a huge thing in retirement fidelity estimates that that people will need 100 the average person will need $165,000 just to cover health care costs over the course of the retirement.

 

00:25:48.88

VARSITY

Wow.

 

00:25:50.14

Diane Harris

So it’s so it’s a big number. So that’s $315,000 if you’re, you know, as a couple. The first thing that I would say is if you are younger than 65 and you are thinking of retiring early, you might think again because those years before, you know, covering your health care costs, before you qualify for Medicare if you’re not working is really, really expensive. Nearly half of people who take Social Security early do so in order to pay for health care costs. So if you can do whatever you can do to bridge that, maybe you have access to retiree coverage through a former employer. Many people don’t. Or COBRA workplace coverage.

 

00:26:45.98

Diane Harris

But the you really want to try, if you can, to bridge yourself to 65. And when you are eligible for Medicare, people often opt for whatever the lowest premium option is when it comes to health insurance. And actually, you might be better off to pay a little bit more in premiums and get more coverage for your out-of-pocket costs. Of that $165,000, nearly half goes to deductibles, coinsurance, and copays. So if you can get health insurance, traditional Medicare plus a medica a really comprehensive Medigap policy like Plan G,

 

00:27:39.21

Diane Harris

or an advantage plan, but one that where the premiums are a little higher, but you’re paying less out of pocket for things like co-pays, it’s often worth the trade-off. So think about that when you’re when you’re thinking about health insurance coverage.

 

00:27:57.09

VARSITY

Yeah, that’s, you know, that, that is interesting. Just, you know, thinking about the, the deductibles and everything that goes along with it that I think people don’t often think about, but also to your point, we might think that, , you know, we can kick the can down the road, if you will, , uh, for some of those costs by getting the lowest cost right now, but you really should be looking at value, right? Not just simply the lowest cost.

 

00:28:24.57

Diane Harris

Well, the lowest cost what will be the lowest cost in the long run is really is really what I’m talking about. We often think about, well, what are we paying for this policy? And that’s what the we’re going for is the lowest cost. But if you’re going to have a lot in, and it’s unpredictable, right? like I’m a you know generally a very, very healthy person. And year after year, I have very little in the way of health care costs until this year. And I and i had a health emergency.

 

00:28:55.25

Diane Harris

If I had not had, you know, if I had gone for the lowest version, I, you know, I am of Medicare age and I have a Medicare policy and a Medigap policy plan G and after my $240 deductible.

 

00:29:10.20

Diane Harris

You know, I didn’t pay anything for the out-of-pocket costs. It was, you know, very expensive. Hospitals stay lots of doctors afterwards. I’m totally fine now.

 

00:29:20.26

VARSITY

Good, I’m glad to hear that.

 

00:29:20.95

Diane Harris

But you never know when that’s going to happen. And I would have been, you know, it would not have been the cheapest policy if I had just been going by what my pre my monthly premiums were.

 

00:29:33.13

VARSITY

That’s a great point. That’s a great point. You’d be in a probably very different financial situation now if you hadn’t made that decision.

 

00:29:36.98

Diane Harris

Yes. Yes. Very grateful.

 

00:29:40.57

VARSITY

So you know, you’re a financial journalist, obviously, as we’ve talked about, you’ve been reporting on retirement savings for many years. What are some of the biggest changes in saving strategies and attitudes that you have come across or that you’ve observed over the years?

 

00:29:55.41

Diane Harris

Yeah. Well, I think there are two huge shifts that have really changed the landscape for everyone. The first thing is, you know, is the shift in the responsibility for retirement savings to individuals from the employer. i mean For many, many years pensions were a thing. And outside of the public sector now, they’re really rare.

 

00:30:27.35

Diane Harris

And so truly the onus is on individuals to to come up with a strategy for what their income will be in retirement and that requires a totally different mindset.

 

00:30:42.92

Diane Harris

And along with that, because they’re you know people were not stepping up and and contributing to their 401ks and similar plans in the way that they need to, to replace pensions, there have been a lot of changes in the way those plans are being managed. Automation of savings and defaulting people into plans. And that’s an ongoing thing, because what we found is that that most plans now default people into the into the plan so they don’t sign up they have to opt out and that’s increased participation rates but they’re saving at too low a rate because they’re defaulted into something that’s not going to be able to sustain them in retirement so there’s a lot of shifts going on with that in in putting the responsibility

 

00:31:37.50

Diane Harris

for funding your retirement on the individual. So that’s one big shift. And then the second big shift that we’re right in the middle of now is just rethinking the very notion of retirement. you know It used to be you work, you work, you work, you work, and then you stopped and you retired. So there was it was very black and white. it was you know there was There was a working period and then you retired and then there was an end date.

 

00:32:04.68

Diane Harris

And now retirement is much more of a spectrum, a continuum. And a change that I think is quite wonderful and has a lot of potential for people. But it’s a different way of thinking about retirement that retirement doesn’t necessarily mean not working at all. So those are the two big shifts that I see.

 

00:32:29.68

VARSITY

you know Absolutely, and it was interesting, yesterday I was down in Baltimore doing some group discussions with older adults and you everybody in the group said that they were not planning on retiring, that the word retirement was a negative to them because of exactly what you’re saying. And yeah this was in a community setting and they they were really encouraging and suggesting that the community set up co-working stations and perhaps even have a a part-time administrative assistant that could work there and and really support that.

 

00:33:04.81

VARSITY

And another couple was looking at having two apartments adjacent to each other that they could actually take you know rent, if you will, and using one as a studio and a workspace, and the other as their living space.

 

00:33:19.86

VARSITY

So just interesting how this group was really, it was a very urban you know group, but really thinking about

 

00:33:24.14

Diane Harris

Yeah.

 

00:33:27.15

VARSITY

what was going to meet their lifestyle, not where can we retire.

 

00:33:29.00

Diane Harris

Mm hmm. I love that. I love the idea of these of of these communities having co working stations and the idea of an administrative assistance. I think that’s so cool. I love that.

 

00:33:44.73

VARSITY

Yeah, it’s interesting. and you know Speaking of working longer, your pardon me, you were cautious about full-time work as a catch-all for financial stability. you know Instead, you suggested that retirees keep a hand in the workforce, not your whole body. I love that that phrase. Talk about that strategy.

 

00:34:01.03

Diane Harris

Sure. So I have to tell you that it is a pet peeve of mine when people suggest experts or government officials.

 

00:34:11.71

Diane Harris

And that’s people of both parties. like This is a nonpartisan issue.

 

00:34:17.09

VARSITY

Mm hmm, sure.

 

00:34:18.94

Diane Harris

People constantly suggest that just working longer is the solution to people not having enough money for retirement or people like to call it a retirement crisis. I do not. I don’t think we’re in crisis. There are things we need to do but you know people figure it out and telling them that they’re in crisis does not does not help. So the reason that I can’t stand it even though it’s absolutely true that working longer can really help your financial situation. that you know you know Even just a couple of years, extending it by a couple of years, can give you much more money in retirement, both because it delays your collecting of social security, it delays you having to tap savings. So theoretically, it’s a good idea, but come on, let’s live in the real world.

 

00:35:11.24

Diane Harris

And in the real world, hello ageism, you know, people often want to work but can’t work.

 

00:35:18.07

VARSITY

Mm hmm.

 

00:35:18.72

Diane Harris

Also, hello health care issues. We get older and, you know, the reason that a lot of people um retire earlier than they expect to are either because they were laid off or they have health issues. So it’s not always within our control to simply work longer. And then again, you know not every everyone, especially people who have been you know look really working like crazy, want to work until they’re 70. Maybe you want to slow down some. So you take the theoretical positives

 

00:35:54.94

Diane Harris

um And maybe you’re not working full-time, but you work part-time. Even if you work half the time you used to, or a quarter of the time, at something that may be easier to do health-wise, may be easier to do in terms of ageism because you’re a consultant, you’re not on staff, you’re not taking a staff position.

 

00:36:18.07

Diane Harris

You’re not earning the same big salary that may make you unattractive to employers. But it has many of the same benefits. you know It can help you delay taking Social Security. It can help you delay tapping into your savings or at least tapping as much of your savings. And it keeps you, from a social standpoint,

 

00:36:42.83

Diane Harris

engaged and again, you know, like in the world. So it helps with some of the loneliness and finding my purpose and meaning in retirement.

 

00:36:51.78

VARSITY

Sure.

 

00:36:52.28

Diane Harris

So I think it’s an elegant solution.

 

00:36:54.53

VARSITY

All the quality of life sorts of things that we’re all striving for.

 

00:36:56.46

Diane Harris

Yeah, yes, exactly.

 

00:36:58.80

VARSITY

Now, I’m curious. You mentioned ageism a couple of times. And over your career, you know you’ve been studying this population as it relates to financial, and I’m sure other you know several other topics.

 

00:37:09.90

VARSITY

But talk a little about ageism. Is it with the aging population? We’ve all seen the studies with the boomers, you know now well over 65 in a lot of instances.

 

00:37:21.47

VARSITY

Is ageism becoming a bigger issue? Are we somehow you know coping with it or tackling it? Or is it just something that we’ll always be?

 

00:37:34.60

Diane Harris

well the realist in me and might say it will always be the optimist in me, and that is two thirds of me. So more than half hopes that that that that’s not the case. I think that we are redefining, as we’ve talked about, you know in and as we redefine what retirement means, I think that will help

 

00:38:07.32

Diane Harris

employers and other people see that older workers are still really, really important in terms of expertise and and what they bring to the table. I don’t think ageism is going away. I think it is, I think it permeates the workplace. I think it is not talked about. I think it’s hidden through, you know, employers saying they’re just getting rid of in terms of layoffs, their highest salaried employees, I think it’s still there. I think that there are all sorts of studies, and I wish people would pay attention to them, of the higher productivity of intergenerational of an intergenerational workforce. So if I’m a big believer in appealing not to

 

00:39:02.57

Diane Harris

someone’s innate humanity, but rather to the bottom line, because that’s what businesses are about.

 

00:39:06.90

VARSITY

Sure.

 

00:39:08.94

Diane Harris

And so you know the research actually shows if you have workers of different ages, that is a more productive team that contributes more to the bottom line and it makes sense because you have older workers who are able to teach and mentor and who bring who bring deep expertise to the to the enterprise and you have younger workers who may bring a certain pace and energy and being more on the cutting edge of technology. I don’t want to do the slam against older people

 

00:39:47.76

Diane Harris

that we’re not technologically savvy, but you know, come on, we’re not as a group technologically savvy is right.

 

00:39:51.91

VARSITY

Sure, not digital natives.

 

00:39:55.78

Diane Harris

So there’s so much that you can learn to and enhance with each other. So I wish that there was more attention to the bottom line benefits. of having that workforce, but I don’t think that that’s the case. And I think that from a practical standpoint, thinking about how you can, you know, if you want to continue working, how you can continue to do that. It might not be as a staff member if you’re laid off. Other ways to contribute and keep your career vibrant. um It behooves older people to think about that from a practical standpoint.

 

00:40:35.11

VARSITY

That’s great. That’s great. Thank you. Well, now I’d like to shift and talk a little bit about something that I pay close attention to. And I certainly know a lot of people out there do as well. And that’s the slow but steady disappearance of printed magazines. And you know I still love getting i love getting the New York Times. We subscribe and get it on Sundays. And yeah there’s something tactile about having the printed

 

00:41:00.17

Diane Harris

Yeah.

 

00:41:00.22

VARSITY

piece, the you know the printed periodical coming in. you know and As we said at the beginning of our discussion, you were the deputy editor of Newsweek from 2020 to 23.

 

00:41:12.26

VARSITY

Now Newsweek had printed its last issue and shifted to digital only in 2012, if I’m not mistaken. then return to print again in 2014. You’re a part of the team tasked with reinventing Newsweek for the digital age. What were some of the biggest challenges you faced when reinventing Newsweek as a digital-focused publication?

 

00:41:31.59

Diane Harris

Yeah, and I will add to that that part of my, a big part of my responsibility at Newsweek was running the print magazine.

 

00:41:37.94

VARSITY

OK.

 

00:41:38.81

Diane Harris

You know, so it was a particular challenge there. So I think that, you know, in terms of reinventing for the digital age, you have to think about how do you maintain quality journalism when there is just a voracious appetite for content on the web, right? So one of the challenges, if what you need to do is just churn out lots and lots and lots of stories to attract your audience, which was the first wave strategy of big media companies

 

00:42:27.72

Diane Harris

turning to the web was just thinking we have to get all this traffic and we have to do it by publishing many, many, many more stories a day. But when you do that, quality often suffers.

 

00:42:38.95

VARSITY

Sure.

 

00:42:39.48

Diane Harris

And so the tension between publishing many more stories a day and figuring out how to maintain quality or at least maintain quality in in a portion of the enterprise I think was one of the great challenges and that that ah that media brands are still looking for. And then the second big challenge of a digital first publication.

 

00:43:11.26

Diane Harris

I almost hate that phrase these days, I have to say, because we’re all it’s all digital.

 

00:43:15.94

VARSITY

Right.

 

00:43:16.26

Diane Harris

It’s not digital first anymore. It’s just digital. And there may be a print component. And I’m a big believer in having a print component for brands where it makes sense. Newsweek is one of them.

 

00:43:28.19

Diane Harris

um But I think that the business model changed completely. And so media brands were used to relying primarily on either advertising income or subscriptions.

 

00:43:45.20

Diane Harris

to fund the enterprise and that’s no longer viable like it’s no longer viable to rely on either one or the other or even just those two you have to have you know a diversified way of generating revenue and if you’re good at it you have to have a diversified way of generating revenue that doesn’t interfere with journalistic integrity.

 

00:44:12.32

Diane Harris

And that has been the great the great challenge for not just Newsweek, but every large legacy media brand and digital upstarts.

 

00:44:13.63

VARSITY

That’s a great point.

 

00:44:24.78

VARSITY

Sure. Lots of sponsorship opportunities, but you want to make sure that the integrity of the journalism is still there.

 

00:44:31.72

Diane Harris

Yes, well, so an example is there are lots of media properties that that have some sort of relationship with retailers and high quality ones. like Let’s take the highest quality one, the New York Times, in my opinion.

 

00:44:53.65

Diane Harris

Has you know a brand within the larger brand called wire cutter which is a consumer product. Research and recommendation site and there they do a terrific job I think it’s really high quality I love wire cutter.

 

00:45:10.11

Diane Harris

But part of the strategy is to get and, and you know, there’s, and it’s fully disclosed that you get a, you know, a commission, basically, you know, for any time somebody purchases through that. So, there’s nothing wrong with the quality of the recommendations, they’re not recommending things just because they have a relationship with them.

 

00:45:31.83

Diane Harris

But what they are doing, and CNN does it, and Newsweek does it, and Forbes, you know, everybody is doing it these days, is that they there’s a barrage of emails and newsletters and exhortations to buy, buy, buy, buy. And that is not in readers or consumers’ best interests. And so that’s problematic, let alone the lesser quality sites that may be recommending things.

 

00:45:59.59

Diane Harris

because they have a relationship with the retailer. i don’t want to you know like Both things go on. The highest quality ones don’t do that.

 

00:46:04.19

VARSITY

Sure.

 

00:46:05.89

Diane Harris

I mean, they don’t. But it’s problematic. It’s very tangled.

 

00:46:12.61

VARSITY

Sure.

 

00:46:12.72

Diane Harris

And I think that’s still in the process of being sorted out.

 

00:46:15.78

VARSITY

It is interesting because obviously, you know, whether we use the term digital first or what have you, when you’ve got commerce happening online and the information being presented online, it does really blur the channel.

 

00:46:28.99

VARSITY

So it it becomes one and the same.

 

00:46:29.63

Diane Harris

Yeah, yeah, I completely agree with that. And it’s, it’s something that we just really as an industry media has to sort out. um Because, you know, maybe I’m a little too Pollyanna ish about this, but I really believe that, that at its core, you have to have journalistic integrity.

 

00:46:57.03

Diane Harris

And that that will bring readers, that will bring you know that will bring what you want to happen to the bottom line. But you have to do it with integrity and care for your readers.

 

00:47:10.34

VARSITY

That’s great. Now, do you see a day when the printed media disappears entirely?

 

00:47:16.95

Diane Harris

Again, I don’t think I’m being Pollyanna here, but I don’t. I definitely think that that just as we’ve already seen, although I think i think a lot of the damage has already been done, maybe damage isn’t the word that other people would use, but sort of to me, I mean, we definitely will see less imprint, but just as you said, and kind of just the same that has happened with books,

 

00:47:52.66

Diane Harris

You know, people like the tactile sensation of being able to hold and you see, you read in a different way. So I think that print will stay around, but it’s often for a different purpose. Like you, I’m a New York Times subscriber, and Monday through Saturday, I’m all digital. And Sunday, I’m all about print. And what’s different there? because It’s because I’m reading for a different purpose.

 

00:48:21.51

Diane Harris

Monday through Friday, I’m reading for information.

 

00:48:22.72

VARSITY

Yep.

 

00:48:25.68

Diane Harris

I want the news. I want what’s going on. On the weekend, I’m reading more for pleasure and my personal interest. And when you do that, I think you want a different experience.

 

00:48:34.94

VARSITY

That’s a great point.

 

00:48:38.22

Diane Harris

And I think that happens with magazines. It happens with books. You see, I have, you know, I read all the time on my Kindle, but when I go to the beach or when I’m relaxing in my backyard and reading a book on the patio,

 

00:48:51.72

Diane Harris

I like to hold a physical book in my hand. It’s just a different, more pleasurable experience.

 

00:48:54.94

VARSITY

That’s great.

 

00:48:57.05

Diane Harris

And I think that’ll happen, that that that’s the fate of media. And I also think that it will stay around because it’s one of the reasons that Newsweek not only brought back print, but during my tenure, actually added issues to to to the number that we put out.

 

00:49:17.40

Diane Harris

and You have to, you know, media companies have to think about what is the value added of having something in print. And besides sort of the experience that we’ve just talked about, it is the kinds of sources and experts you can attract.

 

00:49:33.09

VARSITY

Yep.

 

00:49:33.15

Diane Harris

People, it still means something to people to be on the cover of Newsweek. Can’t tell you the number of people, well, but could I be on the cover? You know, we wouldn’t have had a cover story.

 

00:49:43.85

Diane Harris

We were the only magazine to have Prince Charles write for us. And he wouldn’t have done that if we hadn’t been able to, well, for a lot of reasons, but if we hadn’t put him on the cover.

 

00:49:53.32

VARSITY

Sure.

 

00:49:55.37

Diane Harris

Same with Dolly Parton. You know, people, that that means something. We’re world leaders. So I think that there is an authority conferred by print that will not go out of style and value that a print product can bring.

 

00:50:14.16

Diane Harris

And and i am I hope it stays around.

 

00:50:17.41

VARSITY

Well, it is interesting to think about how life has changed. I mean, if you think about even in music, everybody had you know sounded the death knell for physical media. And yeah there’s been a resurgence vinyl over the last 10, 15 years, something like that.

 

00:50:32.56

Diane Harris

Yes.

 

00:50:32.92

VARSITY

And it’s it’s really remarkable.

 

00:50:35.04

Diane Harris

Yeah. And I love that blend, you know,  it’s I love that blend. And I just think that we have to define what is the value of whatever the platform or the medium is and under understand that they’re different. When we were looking to print and digital journalism to do exactly the same thing, maybe that was not the right way to think about it. Like what can print do for you and for your readers that you

 

00:51:08.06

Diane Harris

can’t do digitally or that would be enhanced by having a print product. And I think that that is the same thing when it comes to books and end with music too, that they should not be doing this same thing. and There’s overlap, there’s huge overlap, but long-form journalism, often as it’s a better read in in print.

 

00:51:32.66

Diane Harris

or it’s enhanced by having a print component. So I think people have to think about that.

 

00:51:38.13

VARSITY

Sure. now Now these shifts, what what’s the impact on journalism? We’ve talked about that a little bit and you shared some thoughts. Has the transition to digital changed the way stories are researched, written or edited?

 

00:51:50.20

Diane Harris

Yeah, you know, I, i they definitely have. And I think that some of the changes, more of the changes in my mind uh having been around for a while or or not good ones but there are some things that are good as well so i’m going to start with the good ones because you rarely hear that and as a journalist and especially one now who i’ve gone back and forth between editing and managing and writing my entire career and i’m in a phase where i’m doing

 

00:52:11.22

VARSITY

Mm hmm.

 

00:52:25.67

Diane Harris

probably 50-50. But in the writing portion of things, the amount of research and data and access to sources that the digital world has unveiled is phenomenal.

 

00:52:44.08

Diane Harris

what would take me What would have taken me so long early in my career to identify sources, to get their research, to read it, to figure all of that out is instantaneous. It’s just you know phenomenal in a really, really good way. And you can find better sources, people who are better suited,

 

00:53:09.06

Diane Harris

you can find the data, you can look at the trends, it’s it enhances the stories by, you know, multiple factors. So I think that that’s great. I think that we talked about this voracious appetite for content and the need to post many, many, many stories has made the reporting thinner has you know fewer sources, fewer you know whole stories written just by background research or by talking to somebody via email. Not the same thing as deeply reporting and interviewing someone and talking to them.

 

00:54:01.32

Diane Harris

not the ability to spend time with the writing on the craft of what we do. It’s not just great reporting that makes a great story. It’s great writing.

 

00:54:10.61

VARSITY

Sure.

 

00:54:10.99

Diane Harris

And so there’s just not time for that. And by the same token, there’s not time for the same amount of editing. So there are more mistakes. There’s more misinformation.

 

00:54:22.92

VARSITY

So as a journalist, I’m sorry go ahead.

 

00:54:23.18

Diane Harris

And yeah, I’m just like so that is sad for me.

 

00:54:28.76

VARSITY

Yeah, I was just going to ask and sort of interrupt but how in, you know, with all of the resources online and AI and everything else, how are you sure.

 

00:54:41.42

VARSITY

that the background, obviously if you’re talking to somebody, that’s firsthand, but how can you be sure that the content that you’re reviewing is legitimate or something that you can trust as a reporter?

 

00:54:53.46

Diane Harris

Yeah, well, going to trustworthy sources. So like if you’re if you’re looking for research on a particular topic and studies and you know the academic institution and where the researcher has come from, you really have to pay attention to the quality of your sources and the institutions that are providing the data.

 

00:55:17.51

VARSITY

Sir.

 

00:55:18.14

Diane Harris

so And think about, because sometimes we are talking to sources who have a bias, and we’re talking to them because of that bias. like It’s not always like because they have a particular perspective. But as a reporter, you really have to be aware of that and under understand what might cause them to say or to have the perspective that they have and take that into account. You really have to do more vetting of your experts and your source materials then than you did a decade ago.

 

00:55:59.22

VARSITY

Great point, great point, thank you for that. So we’ve talked about some heavy things today, and I wanna have a little fun before we wrap up our discussion. I’m gonna name some iconic magazines, and you tell me if you think it’s still in print.

 

00:56:12.04

Diane Harris

Oh, this is a scary quiz for journalists. Watch me fall flat on my face here.

 

00:56:16.84

VARSITY

Well, what we we’re not out to expose anything, but just curious to see.

 

00:56:18.18

Diane Harris

That’s okay. That’s okay, yeah.

 

00:56:22.19

VARSITY

So 17, 17 magazine.

 

00:56:24.79

Diane Harris

Oh my goodness, 17.

 

00:56:29.16

Diane Harris

17, digital only.

 

00:56:31.34

VARSITY

You’re right, it’s not in print. It shifted in 2019 to be digital only. How about Life magazine?

 

00:56:37.92

Diane Harris

Oh, Kaput, no, yeah.

 

00:56:40.80

VARSITY

Yep, it was not it’s not in print. It shifted in 2000 and again in 2007, made a comeback in 2004 as a printed weekend supplement, but stopped printing again in 2007.

 

00:56:43.50

Diane Harris

Yeah.

 

00:56:49.15

Diane Harris

Right.

 

00:56:51.57

VARSITY

Good, two for two.

 

00:56:51.99

Diane Harris

Yes.

 

00:56:53.49

VARSITY

Rolling Stone.

 

00:56:55.28

Diane Harris

Print.

 

00:56:55.99

VARSITY

Yep, yes, still in print. Reader’s Digest.

 

00:56:58.85

Diane Harris

Print.

 

00:57:00.34

VARSITY

You got it. Popular science.

 

00:57:03.51

Diane Harris

Oh, my goodness, popular science. Okay, that’s Hearst, right?, hmm, popular science. I’m going to say print.

 

00:57:14.85

Diane Harris

No.

 

00:57:14.82

VARSITY

Not in print, it shifted in 2021, but close.

 

00:57:17.35

Diane Harris

Okay.

 

00:57:18.67

VARSITY

Okay, and then last one, one that actually my parents started subscribing to before I was born, and we have them all in our house, National Geographic.

 

00:57:29.65

Diane Harris

Oh, wow. National Geographic. I should know this. I’m going to say not in print.

 

00:57:40.51

VARSITY

It is still in print, however, they stopped printing for newsstands just this last year and they’re only doing print for subscribers so it’s kind of

 

00:57:41.72

Diane Harris

Oh, good.

 

00:57:50.30

Diane Harris

Oh, that’s interesting, because that’s what I was thinking about. you know like It’s funny, when you when you mention that, what I what what i default to is a mental picture of a newsstand.

 

00:57:59.97

VARSITY

Yeah, absolutely. So you’re you’re you’re right in that regard.

 

00:58:03.23

Diane Harris

So I get half a point.

 

00:58:04.38

VARSITY

i’ve heard I saw the headline earlier this year that, yep, half a point. I saw a headline earlier this year that they were stopping printing. And you know my heart stopped for a moment, and then realized it was only for the the the newsstands.

 

00:58:15.15

Diane Harris

Yeah.

 

00:58:17.30

VARSITY

So.

 

00:58:17.78

Diane Harris

Well, and that’s, you know, I mean, there’s an example, and actually it’s true for life to me, beautiful photographs seen in print, like, I mean, certainly digitally they could, there the you know, and it especially in an immersive template, can be beautiful, you know, are beautiful also, but in a different way.

 

00:58:25.26

VARSITY

Mm-hmm.

 

00:58:35.97

VARSITY

Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

 

00:58:38.42

Diane Harris

I like to see photographs that are printed.

 

00:58:40.57

VARSITY

I agree. I agree fully. And I do think that National Geographic is one of the more, if not the most popular Instagram account, certainly within the the media world, for for that exact reason because of the imagery.

 

00:58:49.91

Diane Harris

Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah.

 

00:58:52.86

VARSITY

but So one final question. What have you learned that you wish you could have told your younger self?

 

00:58:55.47

Diane Harris

Yes, sir. Yeah. You know, kind of like what I’m looking forward to as I’m aging, some of that answer is the stuff that everybody says. You know, I do wish that as someone who came to fitness and exercise late in my life, like, you know, like you know what they tell you about like exercising and eating right and everything like that’s true you should you should really do that stuff and it makes such a difference and and that’s you know uh doing it now so is starting to save early being more present and in the moment and nurturing

 

00:59:44.40

Diane Harris

the relationships in your life because that’s what will sustain you in the long run. All of that stuff that people say is true and things that, you know, listen when people say that stuff, I would say to younger Diane.

 

00:59:56.13

VARSITY

since That’s great.

 

00:59:58.85

Diane Harris

But I wanted to think about something that you might not always hear, at least this is what I would say to myself, and that is be bolder.

 

01:00:10.76

Diane Harris

I wish in my life that, you know, i’m I’m a person who, you know, none of us really like change, but i’m I’m really one of those incremental change kind of people. But being bolder has always rewarded me when i when when I’ve been pushed into it. and so maybe, you know, if I had taken a year to live abroad and see a different perspective, or I’ve lived in the greater New York metropolitan area my entire life, I’ve moved to a different area of the country and seen a different perspective. I just, or if when I was making a very good living as a journalist at Time Inc, you know, in a big

 

01:01:00.34

Diane Harris

Like if I hadn’t been quite so bound by golden handcuffs and had done something that that spoke more to my passion and and and took time to do that.

 

01:01:03.78

VARSITY

I love that.

 

01:01:11.92

Diane Harris

So just being bolder in your choices rewards you in the end and leads to a richer life. It’s not always about richer in the traditional sense of things.

 

01:01:24.59

VARSITY

Right.

 

01:01:25.88

Diane Harris

So that’s what I would say at the end of Diane.

 

01:01:28.67

VARSITY

That’s great. Well, Diane Harris, thank you so much. I’ve really enjoyed it. I’ve always always enjoyed our conversations, but thank you for spending you know such a good amount of time with us today. And thanks to everybody for listening again.

 

01:01:41.74

VARSITY

We’ll be back again and in a couple of weeks with another episode of Roundtable Talk. I’d also like to thank Dave Schaffner, our producer, and Matt Campbell, our engineer.

 

01:01:51.02

Diane Harris

Thank you.

 

01:01:51.07

VARSITY

Have a great day.

 

01:01:51.30

Diane Harris

It was my pleasure. It was a great conversation.

 

01:01:53.34

VARSITY

Bye, Diane.

 

01:01:54.70

Diane Harris

Bye bye.

 

Quotes

“Old people are my jam. On CBS Sunday Morning if a profile of a hot young Hollywood celebrity comes up, different correspondents can jockey for it. I usually don’t compete. I’m not that interested. I’m interested in older people.” (Mo) 

“One of the connections among the people in (Roctogenarians) is that they are very unfettered. They felt very free to act and go for it because they weren’t hamstrung by the opinions of other people.” (Mo) 

“I always assumed that the less time you have in front of you, the more fretful you might become but it’s actually the opposite. We found that people who were of more advanced ages were actually much more able to live in the present. They weren’t fixated on the future and certainly hopefully not fixated on the past because that does nobody any good – unless you’re a historian.” (Mo) 

“I don’t expect to ever retire. Certainly things will evolve, but what will they look like?” (Mo)

“I’m driven to make things interesting to people who didn’t expect to be interested by them. That to me is very, very satisfying.” (Mo)

“When we’re my age and younger – I’m 55 – we can help set the stage for ourselves by not being afraid of older people and not being afraid of interacting with them or learning from them. By valuing what they bring, we can set the stage for ourselves to be valued.” (Mo) 

“If you can retire in your 60s, great, go for it! But there are so many people that aren’t ready to retire and shouldn’t because they don’t want to because they’re perfectly capable.” (Mo) 

“I think we need to reassess what it means to be 80. I have in my life octogenarians and nonagenarians who are in very good health and perfectly capable of contributing and working.” (Mo)  

Notes

“Roctogenarians: Late in Life Debuts, Comebacks, and Triumphs” by Mo Rocca and Jonathan Greenberg is an inspiring collection of stories celebrating individuals who achieved significant success later in life. The book features profiles of well-known figures like Colonel Sanders, who founded KFC in his 60s, and Laura Ingalls Wilder, who published her first “Little House” book at 65. 

Roctogenarians also highlights lesser-known individuals such as Kenneth Felts, who came out as gay at 90, and Samuel Whittemore, who fought in the American Revolutionary War at 78. Through these narratives, Rocca and Greenberg challenge societal notions of aging, emphasizing that it’s never too late to pursue one’s dreams and make impactful contributions.

Mo considers him fortunate to love what he does. He has no interest in putting on a costume at Halloween because his work is play. 

In 2015, Mo met Chance the Rapper during a taping of NPR’s Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me. Mo jokingly asked Chance if, at 46, it was too late for him to become a rapper. Chance responded, “I don’t know. Some might say it’s too early.” The conversation unearthed a truth that Mo had fallen into the trap that Mo thought he was over the hill. Said Mo, “The whole exchange caused me to hit reset and snap out of it.” 

For Mo, the key to longevity is engagement. He talked about how Mel Brooks, Normal Lear and Carl Reiner all maintained successful careers in entertainment because of their constant engagement. 

Transcript

0:06.01

Varsity

Welcome, everyone, to Varsity’s Roundtable Talk. Our very special guest today is Mo Rocca. Some of you may remember him from The Daily Show. Some may know him from his many appearances on NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, while others know him as a correspondent on CBS Sunday Morning. Let’s not forget about Mobituaries, his terrific podcast about his favorite dearly departed people and things.

 

00:34.24

Varsity

Mo is also the author of Roctogenerians, a brand new book that tells the inspiring stories of people who followed their dreams and achieved success later in life. Mo, thank you so much for taking time to join us.

 

01:23.73

mo rocca

Derek, it’s great to be with you. Thanks for having me on the show.

 

01:28.56

Varsity

Thank you so much. And I don’t know if you remember how we met, but it was actually at Cats in in New York at the new production that they did downtown. What’d you think of it?

 

01:40.34

mo rocca

Well, I loved it, but and my opinion without sounding too egotistical should carry some wave here because I have a very long history with cats. As a child, I saw the original cast of cats when I had just turned 14 years old shortly after it opened and I became obsessed with it.

 

02:02.08

mo rocca

And then I ended up as an usher at the National Theater in Washington, D.C., ushering when the national tour came through. So I thought saw it about 30 more times because it played there a month.

 

02:12.84

mo rocca

And I got a little tired of it, but I still had an attachment to it. I had the cat sweatshirt, which was very on trend right for Broadway lovers of the two green eyes in the back.

 

02:23.68

Varsity

Yeah.

 

02:25.64

mo rocca

And I wore that almost every day. during the winter at Pyle Junior High School in the eighth grade. This production, though, which is formerly called the Jellicle Ball, is so good, it’s hard to believe that this isn’t how Cats was intended to be performed in the first place. And I can’t think of a higher compliment. I mean, it really seems like, oh, this is how it should be done. It’s really fantastic. I urge anyone who has a chance to see it to see it. And my understanding is that it will go to Broadway for an open-ended run.

 

02:56.09

Varsity

That’s great. I did think it was a brilliant a brilliant production. So thank you for sharing that. So at Varsity, celebrating life after 60, 70, 80, and beyond is really what we do. So I was excited when you wrote the book, Roctogenarians, about older adults who achieve success later in life.

 

03:13.71

Varsity

In it, you tell many people’s stories, including Colonel Sanders, Morgan Freeman, Estelle Getty, and even Clara Peller, who was famous, of course, for Where’s the Beef and the Wendy’s commercials. What was the genesis of the book? What inspired you to write it?

 

03:28.61

mo rocca

The genesis so of the book, which might sound very transactional, is that Simon & Schuster, the publisher, actually came to me in this case and said, we want a book that will be especially relevant during the 2024 presidential election when it looked like it would be Biden versus Trump. I said, I’d like to write a book about people achieving great things in the last third of their lives.

 

03:57.46

mo rocca

But I’m not interested in politics. so and i And I say that without any shame. And I think i probably a lot of people shared that opinion. And I’m at least not interested in writing about politics. And I also had nothing to say about the help of these candidates. I’m not a doctor. I don’t even play one on TV.

 

04:18.76

mo rocca

And you have to be a certain age to get that reference. And so I said, but I will write a book about people throughout history who have achieved greatness in the last third of their lives. And I teamed up with my Mobituaries, co-writer, Jonathan Greenberg, and we had a great time. And it was honestly very inspiring for us as well, because we’re both in our fifties and looking ahead to that chapter.

 

04:46.56

Varsity

That’s great. Well, I love that. And I recognize a lot of the stories from profiles that you had done on CBS Sunday morning, which I’m sure gave you a lot of great material.

 

04:55.30

mo rocca

They did, and look, you know, old people are my jam. I mean, on CBS Sunday morning, if… you know a profile of a hot, young Hollywood celebrity comes up and you know different correspondents can jockey for it. I usually don’t even compete. I’m not that interested. I’m interested in older people. When I created my cooking show, my grandmother’s ravioli, which ran for four seasons on Cooking Channel, in which I went around the country learning to cook from grandmothers and grandfathers in their kitchen.

 

05:27.20

mo rocca

I did it not so much because I wanted to learn how to cook, and I’m still pretty lousy in the kitchen, but because I really wanted to hear from people in their 70s, 80s, and even older, the values that had shaped their lives, what mattered to them at this stage in life.

 

05:43.77

mo rocca

yeah

 

05:45.52

Varsity

Well, that’s great. What are you looking forward to as you age?

 

05:49.48

mo rocca

I’m looking forward to caring less about what other people think of me. that’s one of the that’s one of the connections, I think, among the people in this book is that they’re very unfettered. They felt very free to act and to go for it because they weren’t hamstrung by the opinions of other people. It’s a quality, I think, that we ascribe to young people. Oh, she’s going alone. Oh, he’s a rebel and does things his own way. But that’s usually not the case. I think people in their 20s and 30s

 

06:25.05

mo rocca

tend to care very much what other people think of them. And that’s not always a bad thing, obviously. And I think a lot of young people figuring out who they are to use modern parlance crowdsource their decisions and even sometimes their own personalities, seeing what works, what gets a good response, what gets likes on social media. But people at the other end of life are not doing that. They’re much more sure of who they are.

 

06:53.02

Varsity

I couldn’t agree more. I talk with you know many older adults, and that’s one of the things that they always say is they love that they don’t have to worry about what other people are thinking and that they can just be themselves finally.

 

07:04.73

mo rocca

Yeah, yeah. And again, that word unfettered, it’s something I keep thinking about. And one of the big surprises for me, I hope I’m not jumping the gun here is that I had always assumed that the less time you have in front of you, the more fretful you might become, but it’s actually the opposite. We found that the people that were of more advanced ages were actually much more able to live in the present.

 

07:30.23

mo rocca

They weren’t fixated on the future and certainly hopefully not fixated in the past because that doesn’t nobody any good unless you’re a historian.

 

07:36.51

Varsity

Yep. There you go. There you go. well Speaking of of history, you said that you put a lot of thought into liking the year that you were born, which would be 1969, a great year. But you said you’d have liked to have been born in 1888. Why?

 

07:52.21

mo rocca

Well, I just, when I was thinking about years, I would have liked to have been born. I i put 1969 in the first position because I’m happy with how things have unfolded in my life. But then I thought second choice, no, not 1968 or 1970, 1888.

 

08:07.02

mo rocca

And I kind of gained it out. And I would have loved to have been 12 years old at the, I don’t speak French, the Bandesier. Is that how you pronounce it?

 

08:15.43

Varsity

ah yeah

 

08:15.53

mo rocca

The turn of the century.

 

08:15.99

Varsity

and serve

 

08:17.13

mo rocca

at a very optimistic, exciting time. I would have loved to have been at the World’s Fair in St. Louis. And not just because I love that movie, Meet Me in St. Louis, but what a great score. I would have liked to avoid being drafted for World War I.

 

08:33.01

mo rocca

And we get into World War I, right in the community, in the US interests of war. So I would have been told I would have been 30. And I’m just not built for trench warfare.

 

08:40.34

Varsity

Oh yeah, behind the scenes.

 

08:40.63

mo rocca

It’s just not me. And then I would have loved to have been on the Orpheum circuit doing Vaudville during the vibe of day, you know meeting the Nicholas brothers, great acts like that. And then participating in early talkies. And then maybe in you know at the end, of in my last third, Ella William Frawley doing character parts during early television. And then I die in the 1960s before everything goes to hell in a hand basket.

 

09:08.15

Varsity

I love how much you’ve thought about this and how you have it all organized. And I that’s right.

 

09:13.19

mo rocca

Well, you have to plan.

 

09:14.98

Varsity

And and Teddy Roosevelt is my guy. I would have loved to have been alive during his presidency. I think that would have been really entertaining.

 

09:21.48

mo rocca

Well, I mean, yeah, yeah to be a first tier president without a war to fight. I mean, Lord knows he would have loved a war to fight and he tried very hard.

 

09:27.81

Varsity

That’s right.

 

09:27.92

mo rocca

He went to, and I think in put on his old uniform from the Spanish-American war and went to to Woodrow Wilson. You know, and say, would you let me enlist? And, but yeah, I mean, there’s a reason that but historians keep going back to him because he’s just such an exciting figure.

 

09:37.07

Varsity

Yep.

 

09:44.20

Varsity

Yeah, he’s a character. So how do you feel about retirement? On our first episode of Round Table Talk, I had the honor of interviewing Garrison Keillor, And at 82 years of age, he’s still very active, writing, touring, performing, with no true retirement in sight. What does retirement look like for you?

 

10:03.29

mo rocca

ah

 

10:05.78

mo rocca

You know, it’s funny. I’m obviously pondering that question because I don’t expect to ever retire. But what I’m thinking is certainly things will evolve and what will they look like? All I can say is that I’m driven to make things interesting to people who didn’t expect to be interested by them. That to me is very, very satisfying. If I say, I’m going to do a project, a book, a slide show, a talk about one term 19th century presidents, and there are a lot of those guys, you know, stuffed between Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, a lot of facial hair, usually from Ohio. And I love that that you might say, really? And then by the end of it, be into it. And I think those things are always gonna change. I wanna make sure that I stay stimulated, that I don’t rest on my laurels. And so I’m always excited for new ideas, yeah. So i just don’t know what shape that will take

 

11:27.02

mo rocca

I don’t think that I’ll ever retire per se. And you know, one thing is that I’m very fortunate. I don’t love like the word lucky for some reason, but I’m okay with fortune. I’m fortunate that that I love what I do. i don’t take I try not to take that for granted. But you know how you how I know that I love what I do? Whenever Halloween comes up, I have no interest in putting on a costume. And I think it’s because

 

11:56.20

Varsity

Hmm.

 

11:56.19

mo rocca

My work is play, and that’s pretty exciting. So I don’t feel the need to do it. So I think nothing against accountants, and I love mine. But I think if I worked at the IRS or something, I would probably really look forward to Halloween, to let a rip, to like let my freak flag fly. I can’t believe I got that out of my mouth. But I don’t feel that need, because what I do is play.

 

12:26.31

Varsity

That’s great. That’s great. And I have to say, you know, you talk about some of those, you know, 19th century presidents. I do a lot of travel in my work and i I’m sure I can give you credit for a lot of the interest because I do try to see the presidential sites as I travel, libraries, museums.

 

12:44.34

Varsity

I went to Millard Fillmore’s house with a client because I remember seeing it. And I believe you’re the correspondent who covered that and actually toured the house up in East Aurora.

 

12:51.88

mo rocca

Oh my God, You can you can have Jennifer Lawrence or Bruno Mars or Ryan Gosling. But Millard Fillmore is mine. That house in East Aurora that he built on his own.

 

13:04.75

Varsity

Yep.

 

13:04.97

mo rocca

Yeah, terrible president, terrible person.

 

13:06.57

Varsity

Yep. Yeah.

 

13:08.29

mo rocca

But I really but what a noodle roller and that’s not a euphemism. They actually have his noodle roller in in the kitchen there.

 

13:15.59

Varsity

That’s right.

 

13:15.76

mo rocca

I remember the docent posed with the noodle roller. Yeah.

 

13:19.22

Varsity

That’s right. I mean, we could go down a rabbit hole. I often wonder what it would be like if Zachary Taylor hadn’t died. But hey, there we go. There we go.

 

13:26.83

mo rocca

Yeah, and then they went and they dug up his body. And what an anticlimax that was, because they thought they were going to find out that he’d been poisoned.

 

13:29.37

Varsity

Yep.

 

13:32.71

mo rocca

But no, he just ate a giant bowl of cherries and guzzled down, chugged ah a big pitcher of ice-cold milk, and basically exploded. I mean, his bits of his body were found, I think, in Delaware.

 

13:43.44

mo rocca

I mean, he’s exploded all over Del Marva, the Del Marva Peninsula. I love the name Del Marva, by the way. Somebody should name their daughter Del Marva.

 

13:49.15

Varsity

That’s right. I wonder if there are any out there. In the Rita Moreno essay in Roctogenarians, you highlight the fact that at 93 or so, ah she said she didn’t know how to make friends. I thought that was a really profound yet understandable kind of point of view. Have you found this with any of your other interview guests, things that you found to be really kind of profound or surprising?

 

14:16.17

mo rocca

Oh, boy. Well, let me just say about Rita, ah one of the great things about interviewing her, and I had profiled her already 13 years before when I thought she was kind of hanging it up. That’s why I really wanted her in the book, because when I went to profile her, she’d written a memoir. And I thought, OK, this is her swan song. Instead, that memoir was more of a manifesto, a kind of call to action, because then she began a whole other career, basically.

 

14:41.38

mo rocca

movies, a stage show, television. I mean, it’s really remarkable. And she really is still going strong at 93. But what I especially appreciated is how well she knew herself. And she really volunteered that she said, you know, that when she moved from her beautiful home in Oakland to sort of a senior living, not not assisted living, but kind of a senior community that she realized she didn’t know how to make friends. And I found that so poignant. And so and the book, that kind of intimacy was,

 

15:16.99

mo rocca

It felt like an ingredient that we needed in the book, because people like Colonel Sanders, you know doing remarkable things is one thing, but Rita relearning how to make friends, I thought was really, really resonant, really special.

 

15:21.05

Varsity

Hmm.

 

15:32.62

mo rocca

I’m trying to think of other people who, you know, I think Ruth Slenczynska, who had been the Shirley Temple of classical music when she was a global sensation in the 1930s, and is today 100 years old, I profiled her when she was 97.

 

15:50.27

mo rocca

and That, to me, was similarly poignant. She had substituted for Rachmaninoff when she was nine years old. That’s how remarkable a pianist and a child prodigy she was, but she had an abusive father, really terrible, terrible, and it really had no childhood. And when I met her in her 90s,

 

16:13.67

mo rocca

she was had, for the first time in her life, carved a jacket lantern. I mean, it was really like almost like she had just come from another planet think it’s you know because she hadn’t experienced these things. But one thing she said to me that had a similar kind of impact to what Rita said about making friends is she said to me about playing the piano now again as a much older person. And she said, well, you don’t really become a good player until you’re 60.” And I said, what do you mean?

 

16:46.77

mo rocca

She said, well, the notes are same the the notes are the same, but the story you tell is different. And I and i loved that because it wasn’t paul she wasn’t being Pollyanna.

 

16:53.10

Varsity

Hmm.

 

16:58.61

mo rocca

She wasn’t saying, oh, you can become a virtuoso at 70 or something. But what she was saying is that as an older person, as a musician and somebody who obviously already had technique, that she was able to bring something new to it that she couldn’t as a young woman.

 

17:14.30

Varsity

That’s great. Yeah, I really was surprised by that story when I first saw it on CBS Sunday Morning, because she lives just two towns away from me. I live in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and she’s in Anvil.

 

17:24.31

mo rocca

Ah, okay, yeah.

 

17:26.39

Varsity

so And I saw that she’d been doing concerts around the area, and I never knew. I wish I would have gone to one of our concerts, but yeah amazing.

 

17:32.54

mo rocca

Right, yeah, she’s an amazing woman.

 

17:34.88

Varsity

She’s the last living student of Rachmaninoff, isn’t she?

 

17:37.59

mo rocca

Oh my god, for sure, for sure.

 

17:38.15

Varsity

Is that right, Bill?

 

17:39.20

mo rocca

I mean, I don’t, I don’t, I, somebody could back check that, but it’s, it would, it’s hard to believe that and anybody else is alive.

 

17:39.42

Varsity

Yeah, yeah.

 

17:46.13

mo rocca

That’s done you with the Rachmaninoff.

 

17:46.69

Varsity

Sure. So have you found a common thread among all the stories that you tell in the book?

 

17:54.19

mo rocca

Well, I’ve done several. we found and i And I have to give, of course, again, credit to my co-author, Jonathan Greenberg. I think we thought about this sort of after the fact or during the writing, but then we’re looking at the story sort of from a distance afterwards. A few occurred. And I’ve mentioned a couple, I think, one of which is, I think,

 

18:17.66

mo rocca

It’s a generality that the older you get, the less you care about what other people think of you.

 

18:23.03

Varsity

Mm hmm.

 

18:23.70

mo rocca

I think that there is, in many different ways, or several different ways at least, a return to childhood. Sometimes in a literal or literary vein, Frank McCourt with Angela’s ashes writing about his childhood, Laura Ingalls Wilder writing about her childhood and the prairie.

 

18:42.93

mo rocca

, there is a return to childhood in terms of completing something that was started where there’s a section of the book called unfinished business queen guitarist, Brian may returning at the age of 60 to complete his PhD in astrophysics or Diana Nyad.

 

19:00.63

mo rocca

returning and finally achieving her dream of swim from Key West for excuse me from Cuba to Key West at age 64 something. She first attempted when she was 28. And I think there’s also among a lot of these people. The key is that they view endings as beginnings. They don’t view endings as endings.

 

19:26.99

mo rocca

So the story of Henri Matisse, unable to paint in his 70s because of stomach cancer, trading in his paintbrush for a giant pair of scissors and beginning the paper cutouts, that would have made him a legend if he only had done that is really inspiring because those are choices. I think it was instinctual for him. I don’t think he needed a pep talk or to be instructed.

 

19:54.64

mo rocca

he was He was an artist and he had not finished creating. I think, boy, there are other similarities. A lot of these people, there’s a section called, It’s About Time, about people who did achieve greatness earlier in life, but were only recognized, thank God, while they were still alive, but very late in life. And all three of the people in that section had marriages that lasted about 60 years and had spouses that really kept them going.

 

20:22.83

mo rocca

But I think ultimately, what really binds all these people together is that chromosomally, they’re the same as you and me.

 

20:33.19

mo rocca

Well, I guess, right. I mean, you know you get what I’m driving at that these aren’t super humans.

 

20:35.25

Varsity

Yep, absolutely.

 

20:37.81

mo rocca

They’re not a different species. These are people. And obviously, some of them like Matisse or Slenczynska had very particular outsized talents.

 

20:52.57

mo rocca

But others, their talents were grit and optimism and creativity, but they weren’t necessarily geniuses.

 

21:01.85

Varsity

Mm-hmm.

 

21:10.04

Varsity

Great point. I love that with Ruth Slenczynska how you were saying that she kind of rediscovered her childhood because she hadn’t really had at least a happy childhood and and, you know, fascinating, fascinating.

 

21:21.87

Varsity

Did any of the stories, go ahead.

 

21:22.14

mo rocca

Well, i think that, oh, forgive me, ah Derek, I think that that it’s important to point out also that this returned to childhood, it’s, you know, when Matisse begins doing those cutouts, he himself said that it was sort of a returned childhood, that it lacked complication.

 

21:26.23

Varsity

No.

 

21:48.36

mo rocca

And I think that, the and he was drawn by the big shapes and bright colors. So I think it’s important to emphasize that that what he’s describing is childlike, not childish.

 

22:01.12

Varsity

Mm hmm.

 

22:01.70

mo rocca

But I think there’s a lot to be said for that, for sort of the, you know, the brush sort of clearing away and being able to see with a kind of clarity that maybe you saw with, as a child,

 

22:02.26

Varsity

Great point.

 

22:17.17

mo rocca

But now you have all this other experience and talent and perspective. um So all to say, it can be a ah wonderful, wonderful time creatively.

 

22:29.69

Varsity

That’s great. That’s great. Did any of these stories particularly surprise you as you dug in?

 

22:37.97

mo rocca

to think in terms of particular I mean, so many of them were surprises to me because I didn’t know them. I think there were, I knew that there were kinds of stories that I wanted, and our researcher Zoe Marcus helped in a lot of cases, find these people to fit the bill.

 

22:45.22

Varsity

so

 

22:55.74

mo rocca

So, you know, I knew I wanted to include a civil rights figure who was elderly, because we think of the civil rights movement for good reason, is being led by young, very courageous people like John Lewis, you know, who’s 25. And he leads more marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge or the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. being 34 when he delivered the I Have a Dream speech. But I knew vaguely that there were older people in the front lines. But I didn’t know anything about Mary Church Terrell, who was

 

23:35.01

mo rocca

86 when she led sit-ins at Washington DC lunch counters in the 1950s to fight the laws of that that allowed the segregation of public accommodations.

 

23:36.40

Varsity

Mm hmm.

 

23:49.69

mo rocca

Which, I mean, still, when you think about the Citadel of Liberty, you know the Washington DC having segregated public accommodations as late as the 1950s is just shocking.

 

23:58.85

Varsity

It’s remarkable.

 

24:01.93

mo rocca

right and you know and she was somebody and Part of what I found so powerful about that story is that someone of that age doing that is not fighting for a better world for themselves, because at best, she would enjoy that world if she were successful for a couple of years.

 

24:20.40

mo rocca

And indeed, she died at 90 shortly after the Supreme Court upheld you know or or conferred victory on her side. It’s her the case that that her protest so set the stage for, went all the way to the Supreme Court.

 

24:36.98

mo rocca

but So I suppose her story was a surprise because I didn’t know the details of it.

 

24:46.00

Varsity

That’s a great point.

 

24:46.37

mo rocca

I’ve not.

 

24:46.93

Varsity

Now, have you seen the musical Suffs?

 

24:50.69

mo rocca

I’ve not.

 

24:50.82

Varsity

OK, because you absolutely should.

 

24:50.90

mo rocca

Should I?

 

24:53.01

Varsity

It’s ah it’s a great show. It is actually closing January 5th. But Mary Churchill is certainly a character and in that, along with Ida B.

 

24:56.42

mo rocca

okay

 

25:02.21

Varsity

Wells and others. So it’s ah I really, really enjoyed it.

 

25:03.65

mo rocca

What?

 

25:06.22

Varsity

but

 

25:06.63

mo rocca

You know, I have to tell you, Derek, I’m kind of embarrassed that I didn’t know that she’s a character in there.

 

25:07.06

Varsity

 

 

25:11.63

mo rocca

It’s been a busy time, but that really makes me want to see it because it’s an amazing story.

 

25:17.44

Varsity

It really is, it really is. So were there any stories that you particularly connected with that that that you were telling or that you uncovered?

 

25:26.77

mo rocca

I think that the, I think I found very, Boy, I connected with so many of them, I think in terms of hoping that I can emulate many of these people. I think one that I was particularly touched by was Frank McCord. I think that someone who struggles with whether his story is worth telling, I think is very, very poignant and Frank McCord

 

26:01.29

mo rocca

didn’t believe that his story was worth telling. He also was afraid and ashamed to tell it, ashamed of the poverty he grew up in. His students, to whom he told stories of his childhood, really just to keep them in the tent and focused in the classroom, urged him to write down his story.

 

26:11.93

Varsity

Mm hmm.

 

26:19.97

mo rocca

He was friends with successful writers who told him the same thing. But there was something telling him There was something telling him both, no, your story isn’t worth telling him, telling, but there was also clearly something urging him to do it.

 

26:34.19

mo rocca

He finally decided that he wouldn’t, in his own words, die howling if he didn’t get his story out. And did I connect with that? I certainly was very moved by that. And when he finally did write Angela’s Ashes, he said, it took me two years and all of my life to write this story.

 

26:44.35

Varsity

Sure.

 

26:50.90

Varsity

That’s beautiful. So you mentioned in the introduction of , Roctogenarians about meeting Chance the Rapper and coming to grips that you’ll likely never be a successful rapper. ah Maybe that’s true, but do you still have an unrealized dream?

 

27:05.49

mo rocca

Well, let me first say that I took away a slightly different message from my encounter with Chance the Rapper. It was 2015, and I was making an appearance on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me on NPR. And he was our guest, and the crowd was going crazy. And we were asking him, you know, it’s what we do on the show, kind of hopefully fun, goofball questions. And I asked him, I said at the time I was 46, I said, I’m 46, is it too late for me to become a rapper?

 

27:35.60

mo rocca

And then he said, without skipping a beat, he said, I don’t know. Some people might say it’s too soon. And people laughed, and the conversation moved on. But I really was kind of thunderstruck and embarrassed by the exchange, because I think every joke or jokey question comes from a real place. And I think, and I didn’t realize this until after the fact,

 

27:56.58

mo rocca

I think that I asked that question because I had begun thinking of myself as over the hill at 46, which is insane. And that’s not to say that I could become a successful rapper.

 

28:08.03

mo rocca

It’s not my ambition.

 

28:08.15

Varsity

Right.

 

28:08.99

mo rocca

you know And I think I point out my beatboxing is pretty lousy. But I think my question in his answer unearth the real truth that I in in my case that I’d fallen into the trap of thinking of myself as over the hill and his point I think which is kind of profound that you know sometimes even at what we think of as middle-aged we’re still not there yet we’re still too young we still haven’t developed a voice you know and to be a good rapper to be a good performer of any

 

28:45.96

mo rocca

in any medium, you need something to say. So, I found the whole exchange kind of caused me to hit reset, and, and snap out of it.

 

28:55.54

Varsity

Hmm.

 

29:00.85

mo rocca

, yeah.

 

29:02.13

Varsity

That’s interesting when it was probably just going to be a ah seemingly lighthearted moment that it had that kind of a profound effect on you.

 

29:08.81

mo rocca

I think, yeah. And I don’t think, I think the host of the show, my friend, Peter Sagle, I think that the co-panelists there, I thought nothing of it.

 

29:16.72

Varsity

Sure.

 

29:16.98

mo rocca

But he said it with such seriousness. And I thought, that’s real insight. That’s real insight. You don’t know. It’s sometimes too young. You’re sometimes too young.

 

29:28.50

mo rocca

You know, I’ve wanted for years, I thought I wanted to do stand-up comedy. And I’ve approached it. I’ve done versions of it. I’ve done short sets with other people. But that’s something where you really need to know what you want to say.

 

29:42.42

mo rocca

And that takes time.

 

29:45.15

Varsity

Great point.

 

29:45.31

mo rocca

So who knows? I might be doing stand up when I’m in my seventies. I mean, I mean that right.

 

29:50.39

Varsity

Hacks is one of my favorite shows right now.

 

29:52.64

mo rocca

And to realize terrific.

 

29:54.39

Varsity

Yeah. So you write in the book that when something ends, we must think that something begins, which is also really profound. Have you found that to be true? When something ends, we must think that something begins.

 

30:08.96

mo rocca

Well, I mean, it’s certainly true for people in in the book, people like Matisse or Borges, who wrote short stories before he lost his sight, and then began composing poetry because it’s something he could do in his head. So I think that’s part of what survival is about. or And I’m trying to think from my own life when something ends, something begins. I mean,

 

30:35.08

mo rocca

, well, a very dramatic example. I’m not sure that it quite fits in here. It might be a little bit of a stretch, but my late in life. I’m going to call it triumph is that my husband and I are now fathers to a baby girl to where we are our first time fathers.

 

30:52.11

mo rocca

And so, well, thank you so much.

 

30:52.24

Varsity

Congratulations.

 

30:53.93

mo rocca

And, and if you hear a little bit of crying in the background, it’s because she’s in the other room and she’s trust me, she’s, she’s being taken care of. I haven’t just left her there.

 

31:05.12

mo rocca

Let’s just say my life as someone without children has ended and boy, what a great thing to begin weeks.

 

31:05.87

Varsity

That’s fantastic. That’s great. That’s great. Well what well said. And how old is she, if I may ask?

 

31:21.77

Varsity

Oh, wow.

 

31:22.53

mo rocca

She’s fantastic.

 

31:22.98

Varsity

that’s

 

31:23.33

mo rocca

She’s got a keen sense of irony, a sly wit. I mean, she’s her personality is terrific. She and she’s great. And you know, in all seriousness, she’s a very logical crier, which is really great.

 

31:33.39

Varsity

So you can address it and it move on.

 

31:33.94

mo rocca

Like if she cries, it’s because she’s hungry, she’s tired or her diapers wet. And so there’s not. a Yeah, there’s not a lot of like sort of you don’t have to sort of divine why she might be crying.

 

31:47.53

mo rocca

There’s no like mystery crying. And I’m not, I mean, you know, I mean, that may change over time and she’s and entitled to cry just because she wants to cry by all means. And I might even love her more when she’s crying. I mean, she’s just, I mean, you know, my God. and But yeah, but right now it’s sort of like, oh, okay, I get why you’re crying. And then we deal with it and then we move on.

 

32:11.03

Varsity

That’s great. So I have to ask, are you running on fumes or are you well rested? Because 10 weeks that’s still

 

32:16.56

mo rocca

I’m pretty well rested, I have to say, because she’s a really good sleeper. But yeah, I mean, here’s the thing, people keep saying to me, and I get it, they’re like, Oh, get set to never sleep again. And it’s not that I’m annoyed by that. I’m not annoyed. But I but I have begun responding more bluntly, which is I haven’t slept in 20 years, I’m going to be fine. And I really have. i like I have i no longer, but at one point I have like six different jobs.

 

32:45.00

Varsity

Sure.

 

32:47.42

mo rocca

So I’ll be fine.

 

32:50.94

Varsity

That’s great.

 

32:50.91

mo rocca

And yeah, yeah.

 

32:52.02

Varsity

That’s great. Well What a joy. What a pleasure it is to have kids.

 

32:54.60

mo rocca

Well, thank you.

 

32:55.86

Varsity

So that’s that’s great.

 

32:56.39

mo rocca

Yeah.

 

32:56.78

Varsity

Thank you for sharing that.

 

32:58.10

mo rocca

Yeah.

 

32:58.91

Varsity

so getting back had look

 

32:59.64

mo rocca

You know, somebody told me today, somebody I ran into said to me today, ah talking about his son, he said, I’m so pumped. I said, why? And he said, Angelo lost the baby smell. He no longer has that baby smell.

 

33:11.69

mo rocca

And I said, oh, i’m so I’m sorry for your loss. He said, yeah, this is a bummer. And you know and he this kid this man adores his son, adores him. But, you know, so, so I mean, the baby, you know, anyway, the baby smells great.

 

33:24.63

Varsity

That’s great. That’s great. That’s great. yeah We have a 25-year-old son, and each of the stages are great. And you know you miss each one, but each new stage brings different joys.

 

33:34.63

mo rocca

Oh, I’m quite happy to hear that. And I believe that.

 

33:37.50

Varsity

Yeah. Yeah. So, , another question, , that I wanted to ask in the book, you talk about, Carl Reiner. I love how you call them the Norman Lear players. I don’t know if you coined that or if that was something out there, but I love that.

 

33:47.53

mo rocca

Yeah, I did yeah

 

33:50.86

Varsity

, but Carl Reiner said that the key to longevity is to interact with other people. Obviously you interact with people all day, every day, you know, throughout your career.

 

34:00.87

Varsity

Would you agree to that?

 

34:02.76

mo rocca

Yeah, I think so. And you know, it’s it I think it’s also a less cliched way of saying the key to longevity is laughter. I mean, or laughter keeps you young, which, by the way, I also think is true.

 

34:12.34

Varsity

Sorry.

 

34:13.84

mo rocca

And when somebody like Norman Lear tells you that you better believe it, it’s not like, you know,

 

34:17.59

Varsity

so

 

34:18.39

mo rocca

I mean, the person responsible for a good proportion of what we’ve laughed at in this in, you know, over the last 50 years, when you have to take what he says seriously. But I think it’s, while laughter is absolutely wonderful, I think really, it’s about engagement. And, you know, Mel Brooks, Norman Lear and Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks is still with us, but all of them really lived by that. I mean, they’re, they’re, they’re old age,

 

34:47.86

mo rocca

has been fruitful and happy, I think because of their just constant engagement.

 

34:54.81

Varsity

That’s great. That’s great. So how can we as a society change our perception of aging to see it more as a time for new beginnings rather than winding down? Are there are there any greater lessons that we can we can take away, in your opinion?

 

35:08.75

mo rocca

Well, I think when we’re my age and younger, I’m 55, we can help set the stage for ourselves by not being afraid of older people and not being afraid of interacting or learning from them. I mean, there’s a sort of insidious idea that they’re um that they are you know preventing younger people from you know gaining promotions, moving up the food chain.

 

35:38.10

mo rocca

And that’s just not how the economy works. That’s not how things work.

 

35:41.00

Varsity

Yeah.

 

35:41.73

mo rocca

And so I think by valuing what they can bring, and now we can help set the stage for ourselves to be valued.

 

35:52.75

mo rocca

That’s one thing. You know, I mean, do we quote Louise Aronson, who wrote a landmark, a gerontologist who wrote a landmark book called Elderhood in the preface. She had said, you know we’ve added these 20 years onto our lives and we haven’t figured out what to do with them. So if you can retire in your sixties, great, go for it. But there are so many people that aren’t ready to.

 

36:20.15

mo rocca

and shouldn’t because they don’t want to and they’re perfectly capable. And so there’s all this talent. And we actually really do need the talent, you know, the population may be aging, but it’s also tapering off, you know, and that’s which is ah a big fear that a lot of people have right now.

 

36:30.89

Varsity

Hmm. Mm hmm.

 

36:36.65

mo rocca

So the more the merrier to keep this society, you know, functioning. Yeah.

 

36:43.71

Varsity

That’s great. And that that’s an interesting quote. We’ve added 20 years to our life, but we haven’t figured out what to do with it. Is that that the quote, roughly?

 

36:49.88

mo rocca

Yeah, that’s right. I mean, look, at you know, I mean, granted, you know, when you say the greatest generation, their life expectancy was a lot shorter, of course, some of that is because of infant mortality, but it really was even it significantly shorter. And so they’re all these, the there’s these extra decades of life. And so I think we need to reassess, you know,

 

37:19.01

mo rocca

what it means to be, you know, 80 right now.

 

37:22.15

Varsity

Absolutely.

 

37:22.42

mo rocca

I mean, I have in my life, octogenarians and nonogenarians who are in very good health and are perfectly capable of contributing, of working, you know, and I can say this is just anecdotal.

 

37:39.94

mo rocca

You know, the much older people that I know tend to get a lot less distracted, tend to write emails, say, that drop a lot of fewer words because they’re not doing three or four things at once.

 

37:51.70

Varsity

Hmm.

 

37:52.13

mo rocca

So there’s a lot that that generation brings to the table.

 

37:52.64

Varsity

Interesting.

 

37:59.48

Varsity

Sure. but Well said. Well said. Well, as we talked earlier, you know I mentioned I’m a fan of presidential history. And I heard the biographer of James Garfield, C.W. Goodyear, when he was on his book tour recently, say that a biographer, as a biographer, you’re not supposed to necessarily like or dislike your subject. How do you feel about that? i mean when you’re Now, I know you haven’t written like a full-on biography, but you’ve interviewed, you’ve profiled, you’ve met a lot of people. you know Do you try to stay neutral, or how do you view your role as a yeah know as ah as a correspondent?

 

38:36.04

mo rocca

It depends on what kind of a piece I’m doing. And obituaries, which were my version of obituaries, I err on the side of generosity, just as most ah obituaries do in your newspaper. There’s so many different ways to tell a person’s story. And so if you’re going to err on one side or the other, on one side of the other being generous,

 

39:05.63

mo rocca

is just as valid as being more critical. I mean, you’re never going to get it when trying to sum up somebody’s life. You’re never going to get it perfectly right in, you know, in that many inches.

 

39:19.61

mo rocca

I think spiritually, I think there’s also something to be said for a kind of humility when you’re telling someone’s story, and not assuming, especially when you’re talking about the past, that you’re more enlightened, that we’re more enlightened. I don’t know that that’s true. And I don’t know that that’s true at all. And to remember that 100 years from now, people may look back at us as ah barbaric.

 

39:44.38

mo rocca

you know, how we treat cancer springs to mind, it may be and hopefully it will be that in 100 years, they’ll be saying they pumped chemicals into people.

 

39:50.90

Varsity

Hmm? Yeah.

 

39:53.42

mo rocca

What was that? You know, so we should really clip our own wings. I think I do think when I read presidential biographies, that whole cottage industry of presidential history, and I’m an avid consumer of it,

 

39:59.16

Varsity

That’s interesting.

 

40:11.06

mo rocca

I do think there is a danger of biographers falling in love with their subjects and this is related centering them too much. I remember, I’m going to get the names wrong here, reading a biography of Woodrow Wilson and granted it was a biography of Woodrow Wilson, he was president, but he was The paramount figure in every aspect, according to this historian, that it began to feel skewed. There was a really powerful Congress. That’s how the League of Nations, but why the United States even can joined the League of Nations. So the characters tend to become outsized, tend to become such above the title film stars that it starts to give a distorted view of what the world was like at that point. So I think that’s a related problem to falling in love with your subject.

 

41:08.52

mo rocca

is making your subject more important than he or she may actually have been. I work in shorter form. ah And I also gravitate. It’s a little bit quirky. And my CBS Sunday morning piece is towards lousy one term presidents from the past that are largely forgotten. And, and I certainly don’t celebrate them. If anything, I had to check myself against being too critical or even dismissive of the Millard Fillmore as the Franklin Pierce is the change of you cannons.

 

41:40.05

Varsity

Sure, sure. That’s interesting. I was at the it is interesting when you go to the James Buchanan House, Wheatland or Grover Cleveland’s birthplace, you know, the docents and Franklin Pierce, I remember, you know, the docents are all, of course, saying that they were the best president ever and and really advocating for their legacy.

 

42:01.53

Varsity

But, you know,

 

42:02.70

mo rocca

well i’ve always and Listen, I’ve always been far more intrigued by the docents at the marginalized history sites than, you know, I get that whoever is running tours at Monticello, at Mount Vernon, at Hyde Park, their top tier, probably, but come on, visitors are already in awe when they walk in.

 

42:19.69

Varsity

Right.

 

42:26.25

mo rocca

But if you’re working at the Benjamin Harrison House in Indianapolis on Delaware Avenue, You really got to sell because half the people walking in there are there to use the bathroom.

 

42:30.74

Varsity

Yeah.

 

42:36.36

Varsity

I remember being at Kinderhook up in Martin Van Buren’s home and you know talking to the folks from the Park Service and thinking, boy, this is quite a quite an assignment, but interesting.

 

42:39.18

mo rocca

Oh, beautiful house. Yeah.

 

42:50.16

mo rocca

But what a beautiful house in those trees.

 

42:51.74

Varsity

Oh, it’s gorgeous.

 

42:52.40

mo rocca

oh

 

42:53.46

Varsity

Yep, yep, absolutely. So, and by the way, Woodrow Wilson is a major character in Sufts as well because, of you know, he’s not treated very kindly in the whole suffrage, you know, suffrage history.

 

43:01.39

mo rocca

Right.

 

43:06.65

Varsity

But while we’re on the subject, what president do you admire most and why? If that’s a fair question.

 

43:12.10

mo rocca

Well, I mean, I’m a fan of Teddy Roosevelt just because of the enthusiasm. And to become a first-tier president without a war under your watch, like I said before, is ah you have to you have to be an invigorated and an invigorating figure. And so, how can you not love someone who loved the job that much?

 

43:33.67

Varsity

That’s great. That’s great. Well said. So what presidents have taught us lessons that we can learn from as we age?

 

43:44.14

mo rocca

Interesting, what presidents have taught us lessons You know, I guess the easiest answer, but the first that springs to mind is Jimmy Carter because it’s a a mixed single-term in office.

 

43:52.35

Varsity

I was thinking the same thing.

 

43:55.93

mo rocca

And I realize a lot of people want to want to say that the that his term in office was much more successful, but it’s not Mount Rushmore worthy, no matter how much you want to spin it.

 

44:10.78

mo rocca

um but Whatever motivated him afterwards, and we can only assume the best, to be a citizen of the world that way is remarkable. I mean, it’s just, it’s so admirable.

 

44:26.39

mo rocca

And you know, as somebody who is ah who has does hit his own version of obits, I always wonder about that all-important first line of his New York Times obit, how it’s changed over the years.

 

44:40.59

Varsity

That’s a great point.

 

44:41.51

mo rocca

Had he died in the 80s versus 1990s versus the early O’s versus the teens and now into the 2020s. That first line is going to, it will rightly be weighted much more towards his post-presidency than it would have been before.

 

44:59.16

Varsity

It’s a great point. Great point. So many of those listening you know may know you from CBS Sunday Morning while others remember you from The Daily Show. How would you contrast your experience from The Daily Show with your experience on CBS Sunday Morning?

 

45:13.36

Varsity

How are they different? How are they the same? I first really enjoyed your work on The Daily Show. That’s, I think, how I first became aware of of you and your work.

 

45:20.18

mo rocca

You know, those two gigs are much more similar than you’d think. And in my mind, yeah, not having anything in my mind, not just in my mind, I think that objectively they’re much more similar than you would think. You know, in one, in The Daily Show, a lot of what my work was about in the field pieces that you would do was satirizing,

 

45:48.08

mo rocca

bubble headed news correspondence and the whole format. Some would say pretty stilted, pretty brittle of television news. But in CBS Sunday Morning, I’m oftentimes and hopefully judiciously using humor where it helps to tell a story. But in both, you’re telling short form stories in the daily show. Those pieces were about three minutes, sometimes a little less, rarely more than four. CBS Sunday Morning, they’re anywhere between three and a half and 11., but it’s still about telling a story. And, and those are skills I learned from writing for a PBS kids show called wishbone. That’s where I really learned how to do that. That’s where that toolbox came from. So it’s about honing, chiseling, polishing, making sure you’re being as economical as possible and connecting with people at home.

 

46:45.34

Varsity

That’s great. I remember you talking about Wishbone on your podcast, Mobituaries.

 

46:49.66

mo rocca

Yeah. yeah

 

46:50.68

Varsity

Speaking of which, when is the when is the new season coming out?

 

46:53.65

mo rocca

We are on hiatus right now. It is, Derek, it is a very heavy lift. I hate, there’s something more boring than telling people how hard you work.

 

47:00.09

Varsity

Oh, I’m sorry.

 

47:01.44

mo rocca

And so I don’t, I want to make sure that I don’t give myself a pity party here, but it is hard work. So we’ll see. I mean I’d love it to continue because I’ve loved doing it.

 

47:12.87

mo rocca

It’s been a real passion project.

 

47:14.89

Varsity

Well, that’s great. And I do realize with that podcast, you there’s a lot of research. There’s a lot of you know a lot of background that goes because into it beyond just simply having conversations like we’re having today. Not that not that this is easy for you to to take the time to join, but it is a very different animal.

 

47:27.34

mo rocca

yeah

 

47:31.32

Varsity

but you know we’re just launching, yeah we’ve just had a few episodes now of Roundtable Talk. What advice do you have for me or for us as we’re embarking on this, you know from your experience as a storyteller, as a podcaster, et cetera?

 

47:53.33

mo rocca

You know, it is a more intimate medium.

 

47:59.24

mo rocca

Mobituaries, each is like not to sound too grand about it, but I don’t want to be mock humble about it. Their audio documentaries, however, keeping things personal, keeping the little sum of the rough edges so that it doesn’t feel too polished and manicured,

 

48:09.51

Varsity

Mm hmm.

 

48:24.37

mo rocca

i think is important. I think it’s that kind of grit allows gives people something to cling on to and sets set things apart. I mean, I think of that Sondheim lyric from Sunday in the Park with George, anything you do, let it come from you, then it will be new.

 

48:46.20

Varsity

Hm.

 

48:46.39

mo rocca

So whatever the topic is, Even if the interviewee has been a thousand other places talking about it, my view is the interviewer and the producer are committed to making it special and individual. It’ll stand out. I mean, I think that’s.

 

49:08.29

mo rocca

That’s one thing I can say. And then the note that I always hate is when people say to keep it short. But I guess it’s true that people but I’m not sure I still don’t know about that because there are plenty of things like Joe Rogan isn’t that podcast that goes on for a long time and what a hit that is so um but I think trusting in your own individual instincts is probably

 

49:23.75

Varsity

Yeah.

 

49:33.92

mo rocca

a good thing because that’s what the audience may not consciously realize it, but they’ll glom onto it.

 

49:34.33

Varsity

That’s great.

 

49:41.83

mo rocca

If it feels real.

 

49:43.97

Varsity

That’s great. Thank you. I appreciate that.

 

49:45.88

mo rocca

Yeah.

 

49:46.54

Varsity

And at the beginning we were kind of chatting before we started rolling and you said, let’s just start rolling. This is, you know, this, this is some interesting stuff when we’re talking about cats and some of the other things.

 

49:55.70

mo rocca

Yeah.

 

49:56.07

Varsity

So I appreciated that, that advice.

 

49:57.73

mo rocca

Sure.

 

49:59.06

Varsity

So last question that we’re going to ask every guest, what have you learned that you wish you could have told your younger self?

 

50:09.12

mo rocca

Oh, I mean two things, I think. Just stop worrying, number one. It’s not going to get you anywhere.

 

50:25.40

mo rocca

The second thing I’m a little less sure of, I’m sure of that, but I just said, is taking time each day

 

50:41.23

mo rocca

to just enjoy yourself is vitally important. But the only reason I’m not, even though that sounds like irreproachable, the only reason I’m putting a little asterisk next to it is because there are so many different kinds of enjoyment. So there are days when I’ve worked myself to the bone start to finish and I’ve enjoyed it, which is different than the kind of enjoyment I get from walking all the way home from work and just listening to songs through my earbuds that I love. And that’s kind of a footloose and fancy, free, light feeling. It’s wonderful. So there are very different kinds of enjoyment. Yeah.

 

51:27.70

Varsity

That’s great. That’s beautiful. And it is important. you know I mean, it sounds trite, but you know stop and smell the roses.

 

51:33.61

mo rocca

Yeah.

 

51:33.69

Varsity

And you know some of those kinds of things are, I think, important lessons that we all need to learn as life gets busier and faster. um

 

51:41.24

mo rocca

Well, that’s why everybody should read the play Our Town or see a production of it.

 

51:47.47

Varsity

We’re going in in December. Looking forward to seeing Jim Parsons in it.

 

51:48.94

mo rocca

Yeah. Great. Good.

 

51:51.06

Varsity

So, interesting.

 

51:51.12

mo rocca

Good.

 

51:52.44

Varsity

Well, thank you again. Pick up the book, Roctogenarians by Mo Rocca. And the book, Mobituaries, check out the podcast. um I listen to it on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

 

52:06.14

Varsity

You know, there are four seasons out there and I hope there’ll be a fifth, but ah at least there are four to enjoy. So, can’t thank you enough. You’ve been very generous with your time today. Mo Rocca, thank you.

 

52:16.27

mo rocca

Thank you, Derek.

 

52:17.50

Varsity

I’d also like to thank ah Dave Shoffner, our producer, and Matt Campbell, our engineer, for putting this all together. um So we’ll see you on the next episode of Varsity Roundtable Talk.

Quotes

“I define the solo ager as anyone who doesn’t have children – married or single – and anyone who is aging alone who is not supported by family.” (Sara)

“As the Boomers age, we’re really seeing a big issue with who is going to support those people who don’t have the adult children or other family around to support them.” (Sara) 

“The most important factor (for solo agers) is building a community. The more we can begin to build community as we go through middle age and into later life, it will pay so many dividends later in life.” (Sara) 

“There are many solo agers who have no family to count on, but they may know younger people that they can ask to be a proxy for them.” (Sara) 

“(Technology) has certainly helped solo agers who have far-flung families to stay in touch with each other (but) it does make up for that face-to-face, touchable contact.” (Sara) 

“I just don’t think people understand what aging in place really looks like. For most people, aging in place ultimately becomes a pretty isolating experience.” (Sara) 

“The difference for solo agers is there’s nobody coming to take them out for Thanksgiving. There’s nobody coming to celebrate birthdays with them. Senior living communities need to step up their game of actually replacing the family that solo agers don’t have.” (Sara) 

Notes

Dr. Sara Zeff Geber is the nation’s foremost authority on solo aging and the author of Essential Retirement Planning for Solo Agers. She not only coined the phrase “solo ager” but she’s a solo ager herself.

The solo ager population is not as small as some might think. In prior conversations Dr. Geber referenced data from a 2021 U.S. Census Bureau study. Focusing on the childless population, she explained that, among the generation preceding Baby Boomers, about 10% (around 2 million people) were childless. However, this percentage increased significantly with the Baby Boomer generation, especially among late boomers, where nearly 20% (one in five women) did not have children.

Sara says solo agers should start planning financial as early as possible but also focus on physical health. The most important factor is building a community of friends who can provide assistance if needed. 

Sara’s work with solo agers takes two forms. She works with solo agers directly and with senior living communities as a consultant. 

When Sara works with solo agers, she encourages them to build community and financial security earlier in life, working with a financial advisor whenever possible. 

Sara is a strong advocate for senior living communities as the best option for solo agers because of the built in community and support system that they provide. 

Gender plays a role in the solo ager experience. Men are less inclined to plan and are less inclined to be engaged socially. Women do a better job of building community. Women live longer, which means there are more women out there as solo agers. 

Transcript

00:24.40

vigorbranding

Thank you for joining us for this latest episode of Roundtable Talk, and today I’m thrilled to welcome Dr. Sara Zeff Geber to our episode. I’ve known Dr. Geber for some time now, and she just has an amazing insights to share, and we’ll put a link in,  but here is the book that she has written, Essential Retirement Planning for Solo Agers.

00:49.40

vigorbranding

And she’s been a contributor to Forbes dot.com. She was in a recent New York Times article, a featured guest, if you will, there discussing this topic.

 

01:01.69

vigorbranding

So we’re thrilled to have you. Thank you, Dr. Geber. And I know you said I can call you Sara. So thank you, Sara.

 

01:05.64

Sara

Yes, happy to be here.

 

01:06.60

vigorbranding

Welcome. So you yourself are a solo ager. And in fact, you coined that term solo ager. you know It’s now being used by the entire industry to describe a large segment of the senior population. For those listening and watching, how do you define solo ager?

 

01:25.25

Sara

I define a solo ager as anyone who doesn’t have children, married or single, And anyone who is aging alone who is not supported by family at some at some level nearby. So there’s lots of categories of solo-agers these days. When I first coined the phrase, I intended it to mean just people who didn’t have children. Because when you look around you at what’s going on in our society, it’s the adult children that are taking care of the oldest older adults in our country. So with the shift in demographics and the kind of what I call the family diaspora, people moving all over the place, yeah solo aging has become more and more common. And solo living has it’s become more and more common, but now as the boomers age,

 

02:27.58

Sara

We’re really seeing and a big issue with who is going to support those people that don’t have the adult children or other family around to support them.

 

02:37.55

vigorbranding

Interesting. So let’s go back to the early days of your work in researching this this population. What inspired you to devote your career to understanding solo wages?

 

02:46.93

Sara

Well, considering I am one, and I am one by virtue of the fact that I don’t have children, I am married and My husband and I don’t have a crystal ball, so we don’t know which one of us is going to go first. And that’s just the reality of our lives and of other people’s lives who are child free. So it’s it started being a consideration for me about, I don’t know, 12, 13 years ago. And then I got kind of fascinated by the phenomenon. And I did some research on how prevalent it is and found that

 

03:22.55

Sara

I certainly wasn’t alone and then it was growing a growing theme in society.

 

03:29.67

vigorbranding

Interesting. So in your book, Essential Retirement Planning for Solo Agers, you emphasize the importance of planning while in good physical and mental health.

 

03:35.21

Sara

Well, I think it doesn’t vary too much from anyone who wants to

 

03:38.72

vigorbranding

What are the most important steps that solo agers should take when they start planning for their own retirement?

 

03:45.91

Sara

well i think it’s doesn’t vary too much from anyone who wants to kind of make sure that they are as healthy as possible throughout the rest of their life. The earlier you start planning financially, the earlier you start planning physically, in other words, staying in good shape, being really cognizant of what you eat, what you put in your body. and These are things that tend to pay dividends in the long run if we pay attention to them. so

 

04:22.51

Sara

So starting early with all aspects of ah growing older and all aspects of of being potentially alone as we get older is an important thing. And I think the most important factor there is building a community. The more we can begin to build community as we go through middle age and into our later life, it will pay so many dividends you know, later in life. So those, to me, those are the most critical areas.

 

04:55.66

vigorbranding

That’s a great point. I mean, the first point you made, certainly there are lessons in there for anybody who’s aging, which is anybody. But you know the whole notion of building community, I think given where we are today as a society with technology, it’s so easy to isolate ourselves and it’s so easy to fall into the trap of not having that sense of community or that that true community around us.

 

05:19.66

Sara

Yeah, absolutely.

 

05:22.45

vigorbranding

So not necessarily related to this topic, but what do you look forward to as you continue to age?

 

05:28.68

Sara

Well, I certainly want to continue to live in the community that I have grown to love, but not forever. I’ve visited enough continuing care retirement communities, life plan communities,

 

05:46.98

Sara

and all levels of senior living that i’m I’m quite certain that my future, hopefully my husband’s in my future, but certainly mine, will be in a life plan community. I live in kind of the outskirts of the San Francisco Bay Area, and there are many, many, many ah life plan communities in the Bay Area. And I’ve probably visited them all.

 

06:11.66

Sara

oh in my presentations or my consulting work or something. So that’s been an advantageous for me personally, because I’ve gotten to check them all out. So we will kind of narrow down the field and we’ll choose one and make that our final home.

 

06:30.04

vigorbranding

Well, I look forward to hearing which one you choose. I’m not going to ask you to name names, but if you could define what you think is the ideal Lifeline community for you as a solo ager, how would you describe it?

 

06:42.84

Sara

ah this And I will be happy to do that. And as I do that, I think that I’m really describing the ideal community for most solo-agers and maybe most people in general.

 

06:52.08

vigorbranding

Great.

 

06:54.73

Sara

But what I look for now is how involved are the residents in the government governance of the community, the activities that take them outside the community,

 

07:09.39

Sara

Are they engaged with a nearby college or university? Are they engaged with maybe a daycare center somewhere where they can have some intergenerational contacts? Maybe they have contacts with one of the one of the food banks and people can go out into the community and cook and serve food. I think that is so important.

 

07:37.16

Sara

It may not have been as important to our parents’ generation, but it’s pretty important for boomers, I’ve found. Now, you know, there’s also a faction of boomers that that want the experience of, what’s the Jimmy Buffett community called? the

 

07:57.24

vigorbranding

oh yeah marguite deville or

 

07:59.06

Sara

Margaritaville, that’s their image of later life. But I find more and more that that’s not what most people envision for themselves in a forever context.

 

08:09.86

Sara

They want to have a community where they have reason to get up in the morning, where they have a sense of meaning and purpose as long as they possibly can. So that’s what I’m looking for.

 

08:21.78

vigorbranding

Oh, yeah, Margaritaville.

 

08:21.82

Sara

There’s one and interesting community in the Bay Area. It’s certainly not in the best area of the Bay Area. It’s not the fanciest community. But whenever I go there, and so I’ve been speaking there about once a year to their prospects and whatnot, but I am always so impressed with how engaged their residents are. I remember the first time I was there, I was invited to stay for dinner, and I accepted. So I was sitting and chatting after my presentation with the marketing director, and I said,

 

09:00.74

Sara

You know, before we go to dinner, I’m just wondering, where can I get a glass of wine to have with dinner or sip on the forehand? And he said, oh, let me check that the residents run the bar. Let me let me check and see what we have to do here. And I thought that was so healthy, just the fact that he had to go to the residents to find out what was happening when the bar was going to open.

 

09:26.62

Sara

how I would pay for my drink or what would be complimentary. I just thought that was amazing. So I like to recount that story because and get that in that particular community, the residents run a lot.

 

09:41.87

Sara

So.

 

09:42.27

vigorbranding

That’s great, that’s great. So they have a true sense of community, but  certainly accountability and play a large role in it, just like I think we all want that that sense of control in our lives, right?

 

09:45.39

Sara

Yeah.

 

09:49.08

Sara

Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.

 

09:55.41

vigorbranding

Interesting. So, getting back to solo aging, without family support, how can solo agers build networks for the emotional, the physical, you know, financial support, all of those kinds of things? And where does that support come from for this this group that you’ve focused your professional experience on?

 

10:14.21

Sara

That’s the challenge for most solo agers. i and my life My work is kind of in two veins. One, I work with solo agers. I hold workshops for solo agers. I speak to solo agers and seen from in senior centers and all over the place. And then I also work with senior living communities as a consultant and as a speaker. so When I am with the solo agers, I am encourage them to i’m encourage them always to begin to build community early, begin to take a look at their finances early. And i I’m a big fan of enlisting the help of a financial advisor. I think managing our finances is, for most people, not their forte. And we can’t ignore it.

 

11:13.93

Sara

Most of us should be still building our finances. So getting professional help with that, getting professional legal help in developing a advanced directive for healthcare and a power of attorney, all of those things, the earlier you can do them, the better you better off you’ll be. You certainly need to revisit them many times. I try and revisit mine at least every seven years, because things change. you know the  environment around me changes. The people in my life shift around sometimes. Some of them leave.

 

11:53.81

Sara

And so it takes some vigilance.

 

11:59.75

vigorbranding

Sure.

 

11:59.83

Sara

It also takes some fortitude to really get going on that. I’ve seen the resistance to doing that in solo-agers that come up so often because the challenging thing for solo-agers is to choose proxies. You know, when you sit down with an estate attorney and he or she gives you the form to fill out so that they can prepare an estate plan for you, there is that question, that who is going to speak for you when and if you cannot speak for yourself. And a lot of solo-agers have nobody to put down.

 

12:41.35

Sara

and because they haven’t cultivated anyone. And you can cultivate people that ah that you can remain close to and that you can include in your community from an early age, certainly from middle age. There are many solo wagers who have no family to count on in that regard, but they may know younger people that they can ask to be that that proxy for them.

 

13:12.46

vigorbranding

I did think that was interesting.

 

13:12.57

Sara

Some people will, no, I was saying some people will well say, no, I’m uncomfortable with that.

 

13:13.95

vigorbranding

Oops, sorry go ahead.

 

13:21.87

Sara

My experience has been that most people are, they’re, we want to use the word flattered, but they’re moved to be asked to do that. And that could be a good source.

 

13:34.95

Sara

Nieces and nephews are a good source of of people to be or proxies. But that’s the challenge. That’s the big challenge for solo-agers, because they need to cultivate those relationships.

 

13:48.88

vigorbranding

I did think it was interesting in your book how you share stories and and a lot of anecdotes. And I don’t know how many of the names you changed. I realize it’s only first names. But you tell a story about a couple who moved into a neighborhood, established a relationship with a younger you know neighbors, and how they really yeah created that connection as a way to provide

 

13:57.60

Sara

yeah

 

14:12.17

vigorbranding

them with not only long-term friends from that point forward, but also people who they could lean on for these kinds of resources.

 

14:20.72

Sara

Yeah, Fred and Hilde, the older neighbors of my friends, Andrea and Peter. Those are actually the only names in the book that I did not change because I got permission from my friend Andrea to talk about them and Fred and Hilde have now passed on.

 

14:26.04

vigorbranding

1. OK. Sure.

 

14:37.18

Sara

But Fred and Hilde were classic solo-agers and they were in their 80s and they really had no one. They had no kids and they befriended their neighbors. Unfortunately, their neighbors were good ah good, solid, caring, honest people.

 

14:54.47

Sara

And so they ended up being their guardians later in life.

 

14:55.74

vigorbranding

That’s critical, obviously.

 

15:00.08

Sara

But the scary part of that story is that Fred and Hildy got into their 80s without knowing what they were going to do. And it just so happened that Andrea and Peter kind of came along and moved into the house three doors down.

 

15:13.30

Sara

So that’s why I caution people not to leave things to chance like that because they may not have

 

15:14.46

vigorbranding

sort

 

15:19.58

Sara

a couple three doors down that would be the honest proxies that Andrea and Peter became.

 

15:26.90

vigorbranding

That’s great. So what are some of the key elements of retirement planning that that solo wages often overlook? I mean, you’ve kind of alluded to some, but what are some of those primary points?

 

15:38.54

Sara

Well, I’m always gonna come down on community being the most important, but certainly financial and legal are important too. When I do my workshops for solo-agers, we spend a lot of time talking about the financial and the legal. I always have a guest expert come in to talk about finances, talk another to talk about the legal. I bring in a senior care advisor to talk about what caregiving looks like, because a lot of people don’t know.

 

16:10.43

Sara

And so it gives them an opportunity to kind of slowly build up an understanding of what they’re going to need and to start to put those resources in place.

 

16:20.61

vigorbranding

That’s great. Well, you know obviously you’re spending your career you know thinking about this subject. What’s been one of the most challenging aspects preparing for your own solo aging journey?

 

16:31.58

Sara

Well, I’ve had to do the same things because I’m quite aware that I need to walk my talk. So I have spent a lot of time making sure that we keep up, my husband and I keep up with our estate plan and and our financial advisor. We’re fortunate that we’ve had good careers all of our life. This is totally a second career for me. I used to be a management consultant up to about 15 years ago. So oh so it’s… a

 

17:04.86

Sara

We have had to keep up with that and I think also making sure that I’m still watching to see where our next community might be, where which life plan community would be right for us. And also being kind of, I try to be of help and and ah kind of a model for the people around me who, whether they’re solo agers or not, and encourage them to do the planning that I think is so critical.

 

17:35.88

Sara

I have one set of neighbors that we’ve become very friendly with, and they’re not classic solo-agers. They have one son that they’re very close to emotionally, but not physically.

 

17:51.05

Sara

He ah married a Danish woman, so they’re raising their kids in Copenhagen. That’s a long way from the San Francisco Bay Area.

 

17:59.19

vigorbranding

Indeed.

 

17:59.65

Sara

So, you know, I kind of nudged them a little bit toward thinking about the future because he’s not in a position to rush in in a crisis, but somebody nearby needs to be, so.

 

18:12.71

vigorbranding

That’s a great point. And I’m sure your role as a management consultant really has laid ah a strong foundation in your experience to be able to, you know, support and help individuals and organizations.

 

18:23.69

Sara

It has, it has. I have a strong communication training and ah background, so that helps, yeah.

 

18:30.98

vigorbranding

Well, that’s great. So you know while there are challenges, what have been some of the unexpected joys or positive aspects of solo aging that you’ve personally discovered along the way?

 

18:40.57

Sara

Well, you know, Derek sent me his list of questions before we got going on this. And I just loved that question because I have just, I have met some of the most wonderful people in the senior living industry and in the world of aging and retirement., I did some retirement coaching before I got into, before I kind of discovered solo aging and specialized in that., and I met people that were,

 

19:10.14

Sara

in the business of of the developing retirement coaching practices. And I learned a lot from them. And ah then when I got really interested in the whole solo aging and how the senior living industry fits so so strongly and necessarily into that, then I started getting to know people in that industry. And it was it has been a delight. You know, the people that I than I knew and the clients I had in management consulting did not have the heart that the people I meet in the senior living industry do and in the aging community.

 

19:45.93

vigorbranding

Hmm.

 

19:49.84

Sara

It’s just a whole different ball game. And honestly, I wish I had found this as the avenue for my career when I was in my 20s or 30s.

 

19:59.98

Sara

But here I am now and really enjoying the the people that I’ve met.

 

20:07.40

vigorbranding

Well, that’s great. what ah What a great second chapter, I guess, you know in and in your life.

 

20:09.97

Sara

Yeah.

 

20:11.87

vigorbranding

So what role does technology play in helping soloagers maintain their independence, build you know supportive communities, et cetera?

 

20:20.87

Sara

Well, it certainly helps solo-agers who have far-flung families to stay in touch with one another. Most of my friends who have grown kids who live in other states or other countries have ah weekly Online zoom meetings or FaceTime and so that that just simply wouldn’t exist Or didn’t exist 20 years ago, and now it’s at least a way to keep in touch And it so exceeds the ability to Really maintain a connection. It’s so much better than just a voice and

 

21:05.83

Sara

So, in ah in a sense, people have an opportunity to to see their parents who are aging, to see their kids who are maybe struggling ah with any number of things. It certainly doesn’t it doesn’t make up for that face-to-face touchable contact.

 

21:28.83

Sara

and i will I have gotten into some arguments with people who say, oh, you know, you don’t really need to be there as long as we had Zoom. And I said, no. I actually try to avoid as many Zoom contacts as possible.  I’ve been asked to do some work with some senior centers and some singing and some villages ah through Zoom. And I said, no.

 

22:00.57

Sara

Not going to do it. I’m happy to do it in person, but I’m just not going to do it via Zoom, not when you’re all together there in one geographic location.

 

22:10.75

vigorbranding

i think that’s great. and While you’re talking about communities, senior living communities, lifeline communities, you know you do you speak at a lot of these organizations, but you also advocate for them over aging in place or staying at home. What makes them a better option in your mind?

 

22:29.34

Sara

It’s, again, it’s right there in the name, community. I think it’s, and I’ll, I just don’t think people understand what aging in place is really going to look like. They think they’re still going to be able to hop into their car and go meet their friends for lunch and order, you know, whatever they need and go out and do things. But the reality of that,

 

22:58.67

Sara

is not what they think it’s going to be. And for most people, aging in place ultimately becomes a pretty isolating experience.

 

23:10.04

vigorbranding

Hmm.

 

23:10.30

Sara

So I know that there are millions of people out there that are still going to do it. And you know it’s pretty viable if you have adult children that live nearby and that can make sure that you have groceries and medications and that you’re taking them regularly and that you’re doing, I don’t know, everything from the physical therapy that your orthopedist recommended to eating the right foods, all of those things. There’s somebody, but for people who have adult children that are with them, that are there, that are paying attention, it’s a pretty different experience than for a solo ager who’s alone in their own home, even a couple.

 

23:56.86

Sara

who is alone in their own home that doesn’t have people looking in on them. it can be a challenging situation. Now, everybody wants to die having spent a great day on the golf course and a wonderful meal.

 

24:15.14

Sara

And then they just die in their sleep. And unfortunately, we don’t like to go that way. But unfortunately, that’s not the reality for most people. so

 

24:23.97

vigorbranding

Yeah, it generally doesn’t work that way, does it? But that’s a great point. But what can communities do to better serve this demographic? What do they need to put in place programming or otherwise?

 

24:37.69

Sara

Well, senior living communities are pretty well invested in that game anyway. There have always been plenty of widows and widowers that are residents in senior living communities. In many senior living communities, the single people, the unattached people, outnumber the couples. It depends which the balance that any and a particular community has. but the difference in seeing in for solo wagers is that there’s nobody coming to take them out for Thanksgiving. There’s nobody coming to celebrate birthdays with them. So in a very real sense, senior living communities are going to need to step up the game of actually replacing the family that senior lo that that solo wagers don’t have.

 

25:34.03

Sara

And that can take a lot of different forms. So it’s an it’s see it’s a different topic than the whole issue of making sure that people have meaning and purpose and something to do in their lives. But there are a lot of things that adult children do for their aging parents. It’s not planned in advance. Most people have this experience, kind of it unfolds day by day.

 

26:03.67

Sara

and they’re there when the people who manage the care at the senior living community or manage the day-to-day life of the people in the community, of the residents, when they have a question about, you know,

 

26:28.97

Sara

is your I don’t know if this person has a history of, I don’t know what it might be, a history of sleepwalking or does this person have a history of not being ah not being able to manage their finances or there’s nobody to call for a soloager. So a lot of that knowledge has to be developed early on

 

26:59.98

Sara

by the community and many communities I think are going to have to keep a pretty good Rolodex to use an old term, ah but a resource database of people that might come in and take fiduciary responsibility for an older adult who has no living children. the In California, we have a ah wonderful thing called a licensed professional fiduciary.

 

27:28.97

Sara

And that is what they do. They are, in a sense, they take the place of the adult children that they don’t have. I have talked to several fiduciaries. I know that I will engage a professional fiduciary to be that person who will come in and speak for me if I cannot. I also have ah a cousin and a niece that will play a role there, but I want someone local

 

27:56.08

vigorbranding

so

 

27:56.07

Sara

I want someone that really knows the resources in my area to be the kind of on the front line, communicating with my far-flung family, whoever is left. But that person needs to speak for me and to be the resource for the senior living community. And I think it may get to a point where a resident is going to be in a sense required to have someone that will, the to back them up.

 

28:29.96

vigorbranding

Sure.

 

28:30.19

Sara

And ah I think of a senior living community that is doing a good job and in in sourcing people can have a kind of a vetted list of individuals that can do that.

 

28:46.57

Sara

Much the same as they, when someone gets seriously interested then I know that most senior living communities have move ah specialists, senior move specialists.

 

29:00.51

Sara

In the same way, they need to have some people, maybe in other states, they might be professional licensed guardians who are that backup person.

 

29:12.08

Sara

So anyway, I’m getting long winded about that.

 

29:13.82

vigorbranding

that’s a really interesting No, that’s a really interesting thought that for you know communities or organizations, yes when somebody moves in relatively young, relatively vibrant,

 

29:26.27

vigorbranding

you know In theory, at least, they’re going to be there the rest of their lives, and there does need to be that provision. That’s a really interesting point.

 

29:34.01

Sara

Yeah, it’s there’s not there’s no easy answers to that, but we’re going to have to figure it out.

 

29:38.51

vigorbranding

ye Now, you mentioned in a recent conversation that communities when they’re talking to solo-agers shouldn’t focus solely on amenities. you know you’ve mentioned that you look for communities where people are involved in meaningful activities, community services, that sort of thing. You talked a little bit about it earlier on in the conversation, but anything you want to add to that or are other things that you look for personally.

 

30:04.52

Sara

Well, again, it’s to me, it’s all about engagement. How engaged are the residents in outside activities? And it could be anything it could be sports, it could be games, but in many cases, it needs to be something more gratifying than that, more meaningful, which might probably mean going out into the community and working with people ah who are younger,

 

30:33.44

Sara

or people who are ah disadvantaged in some way?

 

30:38.13

vigorbranding

That’s great. Interesting. Now, what role does gender play, you know, have you observed any differences between male and female solo ages in terms of the planning social support systems things that they need or are seeking

 

30:52.60

Sara

Well, the differences that we all experience every day manifest themselves in solo-agers too. Men are less inclined.

 

31:03.68

Sara

to plan. ah They’re less inclined to be engaged socially. Women do a better job of building community. And women still live longer. So there are more women solo-agers out there than there are men. But there are plenty of men, and men do need to plan as well. Men often are, I want to say, do a better job with their finances. But really, still, men have made more money in their lives. so their finances tend to be in better shape then than women’s simply by virtue of the fact that they’ve just been able to make more in their lifetime. So yeah, I think I definitely admire men who acknowledge that this is going to be, you know, they’re getting older and this is where they’re going to live is going to be important. So, you know, those are the differences that I see.

 

32:01.45

vigorbranding

That is interesting. I’ve led a number of of group discussions in communities and many, many times I will have, I’ll be speaking with women whose, you know, they and their husband made the decision of where they wanted to to live their lives. And the husband really did it to make sure that the wife was set up because they figured they would pass first.

 

32:23.07

Sara

Yeah, usually do.

 

32:23.55

vigorbranding

And in fact, they did. And the wife is you know obviously eternally grateful for having that foresight, that kind of selfless notion, because in many cases, maybe the husband didn’t want to make that that move.

 

32:39.24

Sara

Yeah.

 

32:39.48

vigorbranding

So I’m curious, what policy changes would you like to see ah to better support this population of solo agers?

 

32:47.32

Sara

Well, I think people who have money, are in much better shape, obviously, to be able to make choices for themselves, hopefully make good choices. It’s the lower end of the population and the forgotten middle that worries me. I am seeing progress slow. I’m seeing progress made in the senior living industry toward making some accommodations for the middle, for middle-class people, because senior living has always been pretty

 

33:20.70

Sara

pretty out of reach for most people. But if we can find a way to make senior living accessible to people that have made a modest income all of their lives, my the greatest,

 

33:40.21

Sara

there’s a great example for that in in Boston, it’s the two life community. And they have done an excellent job and it’s a great model of building a facility that is designed for middle-class Americans, for older middle-class Americans. And you know, it it simply involves more participation in the running of the community from the residents. And that makes sense anyway from some of the other things I said earlier, they’re having great success. Their community is full.

 

34:15.49

Sara

and I try and stay in touch with them just for the fact that they’re such a great model. And then of course at the lower end, I’m a big fan of the PACE program.

 

34:21.66

vigorbranding

That’s.

 

34:25.39

Sara

for If anybody doesn’t know what PACE is, it’s the Program of All Inclusive Care for the Elderly. That’s what the acronym is. And expanding that program will be very important.

 

34:41.81

vigorbranding

Absolutely. you And I know you know just from looking at the industry, you’re absolutely right. The higher end, socioeconomically, there are lots of options.

 

34:52.31

vigorbranding

And the lower end, there are lots of options with you know affordable housing, even though there’s not enough to you fulfill the demand. But there certainly are options out there.

 

35:02.09

Sara

Yeah.

 

35:03.42

vigorbranding

But that that middle is really, I think that’s the next issue to crack.

 

35:07.80

Sara

Yeah.

 

35:10.57

Sara

Yeah. Those are the people that think they’re just going to age in place and yeah.

 

35:14.81

vigorbranding

So you’ve been studying this group of folks for more than a decade. How has the senior living, you know, field come? How far has it come in that time, understanding this population and serving their needs and what work remains?

 

35:35.81

Sara

I think they’re actually doing a really good job. I find tremendous interest when I go out into the senior living world and talk about solo aging, tremendous interest, very little pushback. And I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anyone actually push back and say, you know, you’re full of baloney. This isn’t happening. is It’s so obvious that it’s happening. It just couldn’t be more obvious. So figuring out the right solution for your community is going to be incumbent on you to do in the next few years, because we’re going to have that avalanche that’s already starting. And being prepared for that in in the ways that that you and I have talked about, Derek, is going to be critical for all senior living communities.

 

36:25.37

vigorbranding

Absolutely. So how do you see the landscape of solo aging evolving over the next decade, especially as the number of childless adults grows?

 

36:34.27

Sara

Well, that’s growing. When I started looking at the numbers, the statistics, I discovered that, of course, the baby boomers had twice as many, well, the rate of childlessness was double, let’s say that. In all previous generations, it had been about 10%. With the boomers, it reached almost 20%. Gen X, on the other hand, when that took a little bit of a dip. They had more kids.

 

37:04.27

Sara

But they’re still at about the 12, 13, 14% level. And it’s that family diaspora that also enters into the picture. So I think that in the future generations are going to have more and more of the experience of this. Gosh, the generation that’s in there in their 20s and 30s now, their rate of childlessness is huge.

 

37:32.91

Sara

So they may change their minds. The boomers changed their minds. And a lot of people had kids in their 30s and into their 40s. But we’ll see. But I think it’s only going to grow.

 

37:44.14

vigorbranding

Yep, interesting, interesting. So one last question. What have you learned that you wish you could have told your younger self to help you prepare for your future? What do you wish you could go back and tell your younger self?

 

38:01.58

Sara

Oh gosh, let’s see.

 

38:07.49

Sara

What would that be? ah Probably ah believe to discover the world of aging and retirement and the professionals in that world that I could do the work I’ve done with my background in psychology and organizational behavior that I could have done that in a different industry than the tech world.

 

38:30.02

Sara

but

 

38:31.45

vigorbranding

That’s great. That’s great. Well, I don’t know if you know Dr. Robin Stone, who is at leading age. She’s you know been there for a number of years and has a storied career. She often refers to aging services as an accidental career, that that people don’t often start there, but they find it and love it once they get there.

 

38:45.99

Sara

ah Yeah.

 

38:50.38

vigorbranding

So it sounds like that’s the case for you.

 

38:50.79

Sara

It’s so, it’s so true. That’s certainly been the case for me. The people in this world are just, they have they have just been like a warm cocoon for me.

 

39:03.20

vigorbranding

I love that.

 

39:03.13

Sara

So I’m a pretty happy camper with what I’m doing.

 

39:07.21

vigorbranding

That’s great. That’s great. Well, Dr. Geber, I cannot thank you enough for being here today and sharing your wisdom, sharing your thoughts. Again, we’ll put a link to it, but the book is Essential Retirement Planning for Solo Agers.

 

39:20.74

vigorbranding

and Dr. Geber’s website is SaraZeffGeber.com. That’s Sara without an H. Zeff, Z-E-F-F, and G-E-B-E-R,.com.

 

39:32.89

vigorbranding

We’ll put a link as well. But thank you, Dr. Geber. Really, really appreciate your time and and insights that you shared with us today.

 

39:40.42

Sara

Thank you, Derek. This has been a pleasure.

 

39:42.88

vigorbranding

That’s great. And I’d also like to thank ah Dave Shoffner, our producer, and Matt Campbell, our engineer, for everything that they’ve done in putting this and every other episode together. but Take care, and we’ll talk to you again real soon.

 

39:55.89

Sara

Okay, sounds good.

 

39:57.48

vigorbranding

All right, bye-bye now.

 

Quotes

“Goodwin Living is a really special organization. It was founded in 1967 with the idea to support, honor and uplift the lives of older adults and the people who care for them.” (Rob)

“When your mom starts having challenges with remembering things, repeating conversations and getting lost in familiar places, you want to do something about that.” (Rob) 

“We figured out from (studies) that nursing home residents that if you can engage them in numeracy and reading out loud and handwriting you can see individuals cognitive decline plateau and, in some cases, actually improve.” (Rob) 

“What was intriguing about the initial research from George Mason was that we saw consistency. With 23 minutes a day, on average, doing the combination of these three things – reading out loud, handwriting and simple math done quickly – people could see statistically significant improvement in their brain health.” (Rob)  

“After 12 weeks of doing the program, folks that identified with mild cognitive impairment based on testing saw the most dramatic improvement – 26% improvement in their cognitive scores.” (Rob) 

“The simplicity of the work allows for most people to connect to pathways (in the brain) that are already established and are still in there.” (Rob) 

“These are simple tools that come in at such an easy level. We’re not asking you to do hard things. We’re not asking you to change your diet dramatically, we’re not asking you to learn how to tango or learn a new language. It’s just coming back to really simple things and it seems to be helping in a number of ways.” (Rob) 

Notes

Rob Liebreich is the CEO of Goodwin Living, a nonprofit dedicated to enriching older adults’ lives. Since joining in 2019, he’s expanded programs and championed innovative solutions like the StrongerMemory program, aimed at combating cognitive decline. Known for his dedication to staff support, Liebreich has fostered partnerships to address workforce needs, earning Goodwin Living recognition as a top workplace in the D.C. region.

Rob’s career began in telecommunications but he was inspired to join the field of senior living to take out the fear and anxiety that people experience and replace it with hope and purpose. 

The StrongerMemory program was inspired by Rob’s mother’s journey with cognitive decline. This innovative program engages the prefrontal cortex through daily activities like reading aloud, handwriting, and simple math, designed to enhance memory and focus. Created with personal motivation, StrongerMemory helps older adults maintain cognitive health and independence.

Cognitive decline affects approximately 1 in 9 adults over 65, with the risk increasing with age. While early signs are often mild, such as memory lapses, the condition can progress, impacting daily functioning for many older adults.

To evaluate its effectiveness of StrongerMemory, Goodwin House partnered with George Mason University’s (GMU) Department of Social Work on a multi-phase study to evaluate the StrongerMemory program, designed to support cognitive health in older adults through reading, writing, and math exercises. Findings reveal participants experienced improved memory, mental clarity, and life satisfaction, highlighting StrongerMemory’s potential in addressing subjective cognitive decline.

Transcript

00:02.19

Varsity

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Varsity’s Roundtable Talk. Our guest is someone with an important story to tell. A good and living president and CEO, Rob Liebrecht, the fight against dementia is personal. In 2011, Rob and his family noticed that their mother, Wendy, was experiencing early signs of memory loss, so they decided to do something about it.

 

00:24.06

Varsity

The result is the Stronger Memory Program, a program that uses reading, writing, and math exercises to strengthen the brain and reduce the effects of mild cognitive impairment. Rob, welcome.

 

00:35.90

Rob Liebreich

Great to be with you. Thanks so much.

 

00:38.18

Varsity

Thank you. And before we talk about stronger memory, tell us a little about yourself and Goodwin Living.

 

00:43.80

Rob Liebreich

Well, I grew up in Oregon and my mom, dad, brother, sister, really close to my grandparents and family, moved out to the East Coast for school and stuck around for a long time.

 

00:56.23

Rob Liebreich

So and that’s a little bit about me, a wife, three kids, a dog, all the all the good things, love to travel, love people, and really becoming a big fan of brain health these days for obvious reasons.

 

01:01.91

Varsity

Hahaha

 

01:08.64

Rob Liebreich

And then Goodwin Living is a really special organization, started in 1967 with the idea to to support, honor and uplift the lives of older adults and the people who care for them, focused through an Episcopal affiliation and lens, and really serving now today in the and the Northern Virginia, DC area, about 3,000 older adults.

 

01:31.83

Rob Liebreich

on a regular basis. and And then nationally, if you count all the programs we’re doing, we’re we’re over 40,000 people, lives touched. So doing a lot of important work right now.

 

01:40.12

Varsity

That’s amazing. And I do love how you’ve taken it outside the footprint of Northern Virginia and and the DC Metro. So that’s that’s wonderful.

 

01:49.28

Rob Liebreich

Thank you. Thank you. It’s been with great intentionality. I think COVID actually was a big part of that, Derek, in terms of showing us how critical path it was that if if someone had something and someone else like your neighbor didn’t, how critical it was to share and and uplift that neighbor and and go without for a little bit if you had to, but how important that was.

 

02:10.10

Rob Liebreich

So we’re leaning into that.

 

02:10.51

Varsity

That’s great. So what inspired you to pursue a career in aging services?

 

02:16.36

Rob Liebreich

So I started off in telecommunications actually, a very different field. And I was traveling with my now wife and we came back from a trip and we ended up back in Oregon with my grandmother, my dad’s mom, Grandma Lee, about to move into a senior living community.

 

02:34.84

Rob Liebreich

And the day before that move took place, I sat by her bedside as she passed away. And it just hit me so strongly that I needed to join this field. I needed to bring whatever I could energy-wise and talent-wise to try to take out the fear and anxiety in the process that people experienced and try to replace it with hope and purpose.

 

02:56.84

Rob Liebreich

And I think my grandma was excited for the move, but really quite anxious. And I think it didn’t help with her and her health. so

 

03:05.68

Varsity

Sure, sure. Well, that’s a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing that. So let’s talk about Stronger Memory. I’m familiar with the program’s origin story, but for our viewers and listeners, tell us about why you created the program and and your mother’s involvement with it.

 

03:19.49

Rob Liebreich

Yeah, so like anyone else, I’m i’m a son first. And so when your mom starts having challenges with remembering things, repeating conversations, and actually getting lost in familiar places, which is quite scary, you want to do something about that. So that’s what 2011 was about. Here I was nine years in service in our field, and my mom was showing these signs of cognitive challenge, brain health challenge. And I thought to myself, there has to be a solution. I’ve i’ve been in the field long enough, almost a decade at that time.

 

03:54.19

Rob Liebreich

And so I looked around and and clearly, you know, there’s no cure for dementia even today, all these years later. We’re getting closer with a lot lot of work on prevention side, but no cures. And so we we did some testing with my mom. And yes, indeed, she had a mild cognitive impairment, which is often a precursor to full-on dementia. You know, maybe within five years, about 40, 50% of people go from mild cognitive impairment into full-on dementia.

 

04:20.84

Rob Liebreich

and And what that entails is losing the ability to really have your activities of daily living be controlled by yourself. and And as you go into dementia, you now you need more support ah with people. So  your ability to to dress, bathe, toilet, eat, all those things move from place to place. Those are are what we consider activities of daily living.

 

04:40.94

Rob Liebreich

And so I saw this pathway that she was on and and her memory and her repetition was getting really challenged. So I didn’t think it was going to be, and unfortunately, one of those scenarios where, okay, you have mild impairment, but you can wait and it will get better or it will you know peter out and everything will be okay. And and and indeed it wasn’t heading that direction.

 

05:04.95

Rob Liebreich

But I feel like the world gives you gifts in a variety of ways, in a variety of places at different times. And one of the gifts I received was going to a conference and learning about work that was being done for over 20 years in Japan. And they had figured out with nursing home residents that if you could engage them in numeracy and reading out loud and handwriting and that you could actually see ah individuals cognitive decline plateau and in a number of cases improve. And this was with nursing home residents. So if it could happen with nursing home residents who needed the most care, I figured what if we could bring something upstream ah to someone like my mom who certainly isn’t in a nursing home at that stage? What if we could bring those same tools to her

 

05:54.62

Rob Liebreich

and get her going. And that’s exactly what we did. I was able to introduce to her the concepts. She started to read out loud, ah do handwriting, which was her journaling actually. And then finding math problems is probably the hardest part, like finding consistent math problems for her to do that were easy and not to worry about how how complicated they were. And then I would say within 30 days,

 

06:20.29

Rob Liebreich

We’re starting on those efforts. ah We started to see dramatic shift in her cognitive abilities. And we weren’t seeing the repetition nearly as much. She wasn’t forgetting her conversations. And her ability to get from place to place was improving ah dramatically, all within that 30-day window of time. So pretty amazing.

 

06:39.81

Varsity

but That is amazing. So you actually essentially designed the program yourself from, I don’t want to say from scratch, but largely from scratch based on what you learned from this conference.

 

06:51.57

Rob Liebreich

Yes, i don’t I still don’t know exactly all the details of of what they did at the the other organizations back in Japan and and the conference. we We saw a little bit of of the work they had completed in the nursing homes, but the the concept concepts were universal and they were easy, right?

 

07:06.41

Varsity

Mm hmm.

 

07:07.17

Rob Liebreich

It’s reading out loud. I mean, i can I could figure out how to pull that together from my mom.

 

07:08.75

Varsity

Sure.

 

07:10.77

Rob Liebreich

I was writing by hand. I could figure out how to pull that together and then finding math problems for her to do consistently. Really at a first, second, grade level. So not not trying to engage in in what often we talk about ah these days about neuroplasticity, the ability for the brain to learn new things, but really reverting back to old pathways and really trying to clear those pathways with materials that we all learned way back when in first, second grade and got reinforced again and again and again. So yeah, we we ended up creating just a

 

07:42.44

Rob Liebreich

ah curriculum for her and and cobbling together a number of things. And then ah really having a conversation, I remember it very distinct distinctly.

 

07:46.38

Varsity

Yeah.

 

07:51.72

Rob Liebreich

I was at a and was in Seattle serving in an assisted living memory care community, part of Aegis Living, Aegis on Madison. I was working with this lady. I was a dear friend, ah Judy Wadsworth, and she had met my mom She said, your mom your mom’s doing really great, ah and what are you going to do for others? And I thought, oh, okay, good point. like ah I was having some success with my mom, but it was it was just my mom. And now we were a couple of years later.

 

08:20.85

Rob Liebreich

and You know, what else could we do for others? And so we started to embark on really creating an intentional ah program, not just calling together here and there, but what if we could really curate a curriculum? And I worked with the occupational therapist and someone who’s also an educator who had taught and a number of places throughout the world. Helen Halpern, and she’s she was great. We spent a year working together to figure out all the details of you know the the math problems, the right math problems, the right reading prompts, the right writing prompts, and and created the the first edition, if you will, of the material that now is a stronger memory program.

 

09:01.27

Rob Liebreich

and we

 

09:01.23

Varsity

That’s great. Now is she with, sorry, was she with George Mason?

 

09:05.02

Rob Liebreich

No, she was back in Seattle. She was back in Seattle.

 

09:06.61

Varsity

Okay.

 

09:08.02

Rob Liebreich

So this is this predates the George Mason work. And yeah, eventually we did.

 

09:11.34

Varsity

You took it to George Mason, correct?

 

09:14.87

Rob Liebreich

So from that original design of that program, we rolled that out in Seattle and with an assisted living memory care group of residents. And just like with my mom, within 30 days, I started to see ah remarkable outcomes.

 

09:29.28

Rob Liebreich

ah we had We had residents who, and moved in who had not been able to remember their their loved one’s names. And as soon as they started doing this program, again, within about 30 days, ah the recall of the names was coming back. And you can imagine the emotional impact that that has on a family.

 

09:49.61

Rob Liebreich

And ah we saw people sleeping better, eating better, like all these factors that it was it was powerful. And so that that was powerful and and awesome to see.

 

09:57.44

Varsity

Yeah.

 

10:03.49

Rob Liebreich

i I then made a move for for family reasons back to the East Coast. And while while back here thought, gosh, we really need to have this in the hands of as many people as possible.

 

10:14.20

Rob Liebreich

So we recalibrated the curriculum, redesigned it, and created a whole new version. And that really came out in 2019 under the stronger memory ah moniker. And ah Good When Living as an organization agreed to, my family donated that to too Good When Living, and they agreed to allow us to you know to spread the word. And while we were starting to do that, we hadn’t really thought too much of having a research partner join us. ah But soon within, ah we started to do a pilot program really in 2022 with residents at Goodwin House Alexandria and Goodwin House Bailey’s Crossroads. And we we sought out couples in particular because we thought, gosh, if you have someone who’s had mild cognitive impairment or early dementia, they have a loved one, they can partner up, they can be held accountable to do the work because doing the work is probably the most important and hardest part

 

11:08.76

Rob Liebreich

And they started doing ah their work. We saw similar outcomes. ah These were with mostly independent living residents with a spouse that had some challenges. And we brought that that research. We did ah pretesting on everyone to do a baseline cognitive test.

 

11:24.75

Rob Liebreich

And then we brought all that research to George Mason, who was really interested. The social work team there ah was really interested in doing research on it because they seek out non-pharmacological approaches to dementia.

 

11:39.71

Rob Liebreich

And so they they reviewed our research and said, this is, this is good. This is compelling, ah but let us do our own research on it. Right. Let us see. And so they, they went ahead and they, they ah ended up having over a hundred people that they did their own cognitive tests, pre and post testing on.

 

11:57.58

Rob Liebreich

And the results were were really affirming what we’d already seen with my mom, residents, et cetera.

 

12:01.23

Varsity

It’s great to have that validation.

 

12:03.67

Rob Liebreich

So powerful.

 

12:05.04

Varsity

Yeah, that’s that’s that’s wonderful. Were there any surprises through that testing?

 

12:09.79

Rob Liebreich

I think the surprise ah to the testing was that we you know they had over 100 people and they were from all over the country because by that time we had been able to team up with a group called Village to Village Network. And so there’s a ah big movement of foot in the country to try to age in place.

 

12:29.45

Rob Liebreich

And to be able to support that, there are ah neighborhoods that are coming together in collectives. And so we had we had tied in with that organization. There are about 50,000 members throughout the country. So we had we had already started to work with ah village groups in California and and really all the all the way through Massachusetts, back into Virginia, et cetera. So we had a ah good sampling of people throughout the country. And I think what was intriguing about the initial research from George Mason was that ah we saw this consistency. It was it was great to see. I don’t think it surprised me, but it was nice to see that regardless of where you’re at, ah that with 23 minutes a day on average, 23 minutes a day on average of doing the combination culmination or the combination of these three things, reading out loud, handwriting, and simple math, and quickly, ah that people could see statistically significant improvement in their brain health.

 

13:25.64

Varsity

remarkable.

 

13:25.92

Rob Liebreich

and And that you could take someone, there’s ah there’s a group within that 100, over 100 individuals that were tested that were identified to have mild cognitive impairment.

 

13:37.48

Rob Liebreich

And for that group, not dissimilar to my mom, that group showed the greatest improvement, the greatest improvement. So after 12 weeks, which is the prescribed amount of time we want to get someone started on the program, after 12 weeks of doing the program, ah folks that had identified with mild cognitive impairment based on the testing, they saw the most dramatic improvement, 26% improvement in their cognitive scores.

 

14:00.78

Varsity

Wow.

 

14:03.06

Rob Liebreich

really taking them from being in a mild cognitive impairment zone to normalizing. And so ah exactly with what I had experienced with my mom. And it just is a really big a positive outcome and to think about what that could do for for so many. and That if as a country, we could take people from a mild cognitive impairment stage and get them normalized, so to speak,

 

14:29.25

Rob Liebreich

Knowing that the disease is still doing its thing, they’re still still happening. We’re not solving a disease, but we’re pushing off certainly the symptoms, it seems like, ah that we could push it off for years. And and that’s a powerful outcome.

 

14:38.69

Varsity

And to your point earlier, it wasn’t, you know, not using, you know, drugs or meds or any of the pharmacological kinds of solutions and simply, you know, driving up those costs and and dependencies and such.

 

14:51.98

Rob Liebreich

Yeah, that’s right. I mean, there are there are a lot there’s a lot of good work happening from the pharmaceutical ah manufacturers, et cetera, and and they’ve come out more recently with a few drugs that that seem to have some positive impact on mild cognitive impairment, and they’re super expensive.

 

15:08.65

Rob Liebreich

and they have and they have side effects. And none of what we do has any side effects, and and we offer it through the Goodwin Living Foundation through generous donors to the foundation for free.

 

15:11.03

Varsity

who that’s That’s fantastic.

 

15:20.10

Rob Liebreich

ah we So that’s ah that’s our that’s our hope is that you can go ahead and try the drugs, but don’t don’t just try the drugs.

 

15:26.50

Varsity

Yep.

 

15:27.09

Rob Liebreich

Try try this first, or try this second, or try this in addition to, ah because the combination seems to be really, really powerful for folks.

 

15:35.47

Varsity

So you’ve talked about reading, writing, and I guess reading, writing, and arithmetic. And are any of those, do you think, more important, or is it truly the combination of those three, the three R’s?

 

15:48.80

Rob Liebreich

Yeah, I think when we look at the research and the background of of the origin of where this came from, I think the the thing that would be held up the highest regard is reading out loud. ah The thing that’s held in the highest regard is reading out loud. And when you talk with people who’ve gone through, if you’ve had a stroke and you’ve gone through stroke recovery,

 

16:09.53

Rob Liebreich

ah Reading out loud is a really important part of your language reacquisition, for example. ah Parkinson’s individuals really benefit from being verbally allowed about their reading so that they can maintain ah the muscles and and the brain ah pathways there. So I’m not surprised by that, but it is probably the most important part. ah We get a lot of folks that that enjoy the writing prompts and and the handwriting in particular, the motor skills to do that.

 

16:37.54

Rob Liebreich

ah The translation that your brain’s making from hand to to eye to brain coordination are really powerful. And then the math is really focused on speed of processing. The math is really a speed of processing tool. So one of the things that that I figured out or saw is that ah speed of processing in the brain, it slows down often with people, as the especially as you get older. And and so if you can keep the speed of processing abilities high, ah you seem to be able to operate better. And I was just having this discussion with ah with a resident or a prospect who who I talked with the other day, and she’s 91. And she says, well, you know my daughter tells me never to get in a car with with someone who’s 85 years or older.

 

17:24.91

Rob Liebreich

I thought, well, gosh, I mean, there’s a lot of people driving around who are 85 or older, but I think that the message that she was getting from her daughter was their speed of processing is is not as fast. ah The response time is not going to be as fast, and so it can become more dangerous.

 

17:40.11

Rob Liebreich

So this the math work that we do ah is it’s not difficult. It’s really meant to be simple math. And I think sometimes people ah when when they get into that, they realize, oh, you know, I can focus a lot better after I’ve done that part in particular. Even my father who.

 

17:59.37

Rob Liebreich

He’s seen my mom go through this journey and and knows the success. He’s been resistant to to doing the same work that she does. But nowadays, he’s he’s reading out loud, which is great to see. And he definitely leans in on the math problems when he wants to focus. So if he has to do his taxes or something else right before, he’ll do a math sheet or two, get his brain calibrated for focusing, and then go forward from there. so But reading out loud, probably first,

 

18:26.89

Rob Liebreich

I would say the math problems from a speed of process in second and then the handwriting comes in third.

 

18:32.41

Varsity

Interesting. that’s That’s great. Now you mentioned, pardon me just now and earlier, about how simple the the the exercises are. And they’re designed to be that, not just in the amount of time it takes, but the exercises themselves. Talk a little about the reason for the simplicity.

 

18:49.46

Rob Liebreich

Yeah, so ah you know I should have copy added. I’m not a doctor. I’m not a neuroscientist.

 

18:52.92

Varsity

Sure.

 

18:54.53

Rob Liebreich

I’m a son ah with a passion. And so i’m not I’m not a full expert in all these areas. But what I would say is, in our experience, that the simple allows for most people to connect to pathways that were already established and are still in there, ah regardless of where people are at in their cognitive journey.

 

19:13.71

Rob Liebreich

I think one of the big surprises that I have heard constantly is from our clinicians, ah the people that are providing hands-on care, the nurses, the doctors, where they go, I didn’t know that person had this capacity.

 

19:25.91

Rob Liebreich

I didn’t i didn’t realize this person could read out loud.

 

19:25.74

Varsity

Hmm.

 

19:28.27

Rob Liebreich

I couldn’t ah couldn’t imagine them doing math sheets, right? So ah just surprising again and again how strong the brain can be and when engaged, how ah powerful it can be and so that’s that’s the goal of keeping it simple is so you’re you’re really connecting with neuro neuro pathways that were established long ago and i think it’s it’s like the idea that that because we’re going back we’re reverting back ah we’re connecting so deeply to things that that’s where the brain’s feeling oh yeah this is comfortable

 

20:01.05

Rob Liebreich

ah you know I remember this a little bit, and and then the next part of ah that is or it’s it’s making other things better. you know why Why is someone sleeping better? Why is someone eating better because of these factors? That part, it’s ah you know the miracle of the brain, which I think we’re still uncovering and figuring out, but I do recall also my mom you know she the The simple part is typically about ah reading ah doing the math problems. We get a lot of questions about that. Why is it so simple? And and the answer is, well, you know just keep it a simple so anxiety doesn’t take hold.

 

20:38.19

Rob Liebreich

You know, too much anxiety when you’re doing a test or math problems in particular offsets the benefit of the work. And we saw this with my mom a few years in when she called and said, Rob, you know, this has been great. great I’m glad I’ve had these years, but it’s not working anymore.

 

20:54.12

Rob Liebreich

And I thought, oh, you know, that that’s a sucker punch. what What’s going on, mom? Like, is dad snoring too much? Is he keeping you up, you know, too too much? ah what What else? What are the stressors you’re having? You know, you have but vitamin deficiencies. There’s all kinds of things that could be at play. You know, urinary tract infections, those type of things. None of those were in play. And I thought, okay, well, tell me about what kind of math you’re working on right now, mom.

 

21:17.88

Rob Liebreich

And she said, oh well, I’m working in in you know sort of multiple ah digit ah division. And it’s really it’s frustrating, and it’s hard, and I’m not getting everything right. And you know it doesn’t feel good. And I thought, OK, this is the thing. Like, let’s revert back to Simple Mom.

 

21:34.93

Rob Liebreich

Let’s go back to simple addition. Let’s go back to simple ah subtraction. And if that changes, you know how you’re feeling, we’ll know really quick and and let’s do that.

 

21:45.45

Rob Liebreich

And within a week, ah she was back and reverted back to her good positive brain health. So no other interventions, just shifting away from division, harder division into simple math again.

 

21:52.88

Varsity

That’s great.

 

21:56.58

Varsity

I guess it’s you know when we think about going through grade school, elementary, you know middle school, et cetera, we’re trying to progress and in the complexity of the math problems in that example. Whereas here, it’s not about that at all. It’s just about exercising the the the brain, exercising the muscle of the brain.

 

22:13.95

Rob Liebreich

Yeah, that’s right. And I think the the part that I appreciate is that you don’t have to get the problems right.

 

22:20.38

Varsity

Mm-hmm.

 

22:21.23

Rob Liebreich

We actually don’t care. We don’t even provide a an answer key ah to the problems because it’s not about getting it right. It’s about doing the problems and in having your brain get into that rhythm.

 

22:32.31

Rob Liebreich

Now my mom is competitive and she would say, I wanna know if I’ve got it right as well.

 

22:33.95

Varsity

Haha.

 

22:36.85

Rob Liebreich

and So you know there’s plenty of ways to find out the answer or to have someone else check your work type of thing after, but I think that’s a ah critical discussion. Keep it simple and then try to keep it as engaging as possible.

 

22:50.02

Rob Liebreich

you know I think we provide hundreds of pages of math sheets, but people still get through them fairly quick. And we say, well, okay, instead of doing it in the same order that you did before, you know try it in a reverse direction or or jump around the page or start you know in a different way.

 

23:04.86

Rob Liebreich

Or go find you know go to the local store and buy more you know you know first grade, second grade math programs and do those. We don’t have a monopoly on anything. We’re not charging for anything.

 

23:15.97

Varsity

Sure.

 

23:17.04

Rob Liebreich

ah we’re We’re trying to get people to get into a habit, and that’s the most important. So however people can get into the habit, yeah play some games with themselves, reward themselves for the work that they’re doing, a daily you know a star in the calendar, or you know a special cookie or something you get after you’re completing the work, something is really important.

 

23:34.93

Rob Liebreich

and And I would say that’s definitely something we’ve seen as part of the outcome of this is the socialization factor is is important, can be important. The work itself, it it works by itself one-on-one, it’s great.

 

23:49.09

Rob Liebreich

When you start to work it with other people in a social setting, ah we try to encourage people to come together at least once a week ah to have an accountability group. ah so that you you don’t just you know try it out for a week and stop, but you are called back up like, hey, come, come, let’s talk about how things are going. ah So when you have to be accountable to a group of people who are on the same journey with you, ah you you stay more compliant and doing doing the work at least four days a week, really five to seven days a week is is necessary to start to see the the impact.

 

24:21.26

Varsity

That’s great. That’s great. Now the Alzheimer’s Association reports that 15 to 20% of those over age 65 have some sort of mild cognitive impairment. It’s about 10 million people in the US, you know, 38% of individuals with MCI developed dementia after five years, according to the the research. Your program was created for people in the MCI phase, but can the program be used proactively before mild cognitive impairment systems occur?

 

24:49.12

Rob Liebreich

Absolutely. You know, as I mentioned before, you know, some of the tools and they’re all basic tools ah really do help calibrate the focus. And I remember distinctly a resident at Guineau House Bay, these crossroads, which is like a great community and in Fairfax, Virginia. ah She came up to me and said, Rob, I don’t have any challenges with my co cognition. And so I appreciate your program, but I’m i’m not going to do it. I’m just not going to use it.

 

25:14.50

Rob Liebreich

And I thought, okay, no problem. And she said, but i do I do read the Bible every day. I said, okay, that’s great. And she said, I had to happen reading it out loud every day. I said, well, that’s great. That’s great. That’s perfect. That’s exactly what we hope you would do. And she said, and I have to tell you, my focus is so much better.

 

25:33.42

Rob Liebreich

Great, so it doesn’t it doesn’t require having a mild cognitive impairment diagnosis to benefit from this work and engaging your brain in this way. And I think that’s that’s what we’re really trying to infuse is that most people are already doing things like reading reading the news, reading a book, reading something, just read it out loud. yeah and And if you can just add that element, it really has an impact and engages so much more of your brain. And so there’s there’s real benefit to it.

 

26:02.80

Rob Liebreich

So yeah, it it could definitely help people even before this stage. And I would say my mom’s journey so far, ah it’s been 11, 12 years, 12 years now and that she’s been doing this work.

 

26:15.75

Varsity

Wow.

 

26:17.67

Rob Liebreich

And so and we’re we’re talking with people who’ve been in the program for at least three, four years now. And they would say, you know, stay with it and in the number of folks who didn’t have, you know, a diagnosis before ah benefiting from doing the work and and sort of staving off maybe what could become a diagnosis later.

 

26:35.55

Varsity

That’s great, so you’ve developed the program, but it’s not even about the program, it’s about the core tenets of it. And and like you said, if if reading the Bible or the news or whatever it is in your normal cycle, just you know bring those those core tenets into whatever it is you do on a daily basis.

 

26:51.87

Rob Liebreich

Yes, exactly. If we can infuse it into your daily rhythm, that’s the that’s perfect, right? That’s the best of all worlds.

 

26:57.19

Varsity

Yep.

 

26:59.08

Rob Liebreich

And so I think the hard part to do that, your reading is the easiest part. It’s also, as we talked about, probably the most important part of the equation. ah The handwriting prompts, they’re great. you know We provide over 200 and some handwriting prompts. They they create almost an autobiographical story of someone. ah they’re They’re fun. They’re engaging. I remember early on, we had a ah couple who’d been married for decades, maybe coming up ah over 60 years.

 

27:26.99

Rob Liebreich

and they started to do the work together. And that’s cri also important. So if you are, if you if someone has the material, you know, they go to strongermemory.org and they download the program and they they say, well, this is for someone else.

 

27:36.14

Varsity

Hmm. Hi.

 

27:39.35

Rob Liebreich

ah It’s really helpful if if you do it with that someone else instead of just handing it over to them and say, here’s here’s your homework. ah So a couple was doing it together and they were working through the prompts and they said, you know, we enjoy the program overall, but these prompts are fabulous.

 

27:53.56

Rob Liebreich

And we’re spending hours talking in ways that we hadn’t for years. And so that’s, this is so much encouragement ah for people to to get engaged in the prompts as well.

 

27:59.74

Varsity

That’s great.

 

28:04.46

Rob Liebreich

Yeah.

 

28:04.31

Varsity

Which gets back to your point about socialization.

 

28:06.65

Rob Liebreich

Exactly. Exactly. It’s powerful. that The socialization factor is really powerful.

 

28:09.02

Varsity

ye

 

28:11.65

Varsity

So what about folks with advanced mild cognitive impairment symptoms or even dementia? Is it ever too late?

 

28:19.64

Rob Liebreich

Yeah, I’m not an expert enough to say whether it’s ever too late or not, but I’ll tell you from my experience and in the work we’ve been doing throughout the state of Virginia in particular.

 

28:21.30

Varsity

Sure.

 

28:29.74

Rob Liebreich

So early on, we did apply. As we as were going through the program and and more and more people were using it, we were getting feedback from folks who had dementia ah or further on the path and saying, hey, this is helping me. This is working. And then we said, OK, if it’s working for folks, let’s see if we can help those furthest along in the dementia journey.

 

28:51.33

Rob Liebreich

And so we applied for a grant and we received it through CMS, ah you know, over $300,000 to roll out the program to 100 skilled nursing locations within the state of Virginia. And we’re we’re making great progress.

 

29:06.12

Rob Liebreich

We’re over’re we’re over 50% into the program right now.

 

29:07.86

Varsity

Great.

 

29:11.08

Rob Liebreich

And we’re being able to hear the stories of folks who really, in some cases, Derek, were catatonic and just non-responsive. And all of a sudden, they’ve they’ve been given the opportunity and encouraged to do some of the writing prompts or reading a little bit out loud consistently on a day-to-day basis.

 

29:29.39

Rob Liebreich

or doing some of the the numeracy work. Sometimes you can do math, but sometimes it’s just sort of checking, oh, this is the number one and seeing if they can track on that kind of level. And the stories of people coming back, if you will, from their state of ah not being communicative, not being engaged,

 

29:47.70

Rob Liebreich

ah we’ We’ve had so many stories, and and I remember that one one of the most heart-pulling ones was just a ah a wife who was in a nursing home in Virginia, hadn’t talked for over a year. Her husband was diligent, dedicated.

 

30:05.79

Rob Liebreich

And they were able to coax her into starting to do this work, the stronger memory work. And ah within a few within within a couple of weeks, she started to change. And she started to engage. And she started to be able to engage with her husband. And the the emotional benefit of that ah was is has just been tremendous. And so the team, this the staff there, the team there, the husband, the family,

 

30:32.89

Rob Liebreich

all Even though the program you know goes through sort of this 12-week course and people have to decide whether to continue, like they’re they’re all in. They want to you know keep things like that going.

 

30:39.79

Varsity

Right.

 

30:40.85

Rob Liebreich

So I do think the brain has tremendous power ah even as people are further along in their dementia journey or the brain health journey. And these are simple tools that you know, combat or come in at such a ah an easy level. And we’re not asking you to do hard things. We’re not asking you to change your diet dramatically. We’re not asking you to learn how to tango or learn a new language, right? It’s just coming back to really simple things. And and it seems to be helping in a number of ways.

 

31:10.65

Varsity

Those are remarkable stories, and what a gift to the individuals themselves, but to their family members, to you know not to seem too grandiose, but to society overall. I mean, this is something that the the world is facing in in greater numbers. So that’s that’s really remarkable. and And memory loss and dementia, ah you know I think In society, it’s it it has a certain stigma and and can be frightening parts of the aging process. But you know aging has highlights as well. what you know You’ve worked with older adults now for quite some time. What are you looking forward to as you age?

 

31:45.85

Rob Liebreich

As I age, I think one of the things I keep learning is ah people at all age really seek the opportunity for purpose in their day.

 

31:57.39

Rob Liebreich

and and not to underestimate the potential. So if you tie those two concepts together that people ah seek purpose and they have strong potential and you marry those two up, ah then you have an experience as you age that keeps you engaged, keeps you being able to make a difference in your world around you in a positive way. So that that’s what I would seek for myself are are those opportunities. And I can’t tell you I know what they are. I mean, I keep on coming across our residents at Go and Living who are you know starting to paint at the age of 90. They’re like, okay, sure, why not? Or or creating new you know music for the first time. They’ve never done that before, but they’re why not why not try it out? Or mentoring ah youth around them. That’s something that they weren’t doing you know regularly, but they’re really enjoying it now. so

 

32:49.79

Rob Liebreich

I think I’m got not going to be much different ah than a number of our residents or those older adults that I see today. ah Maybe my own parents who are staying active, ah want want to have a sense of purpose, don’t want to become irrelevant, don’t want to be forgotten, ah don’t want to be written off. And I think all of those parts are a critical path ah for for me as I age and certainly for for those that I serve today.

 

33:14.21

Varsity

I think that that’s a really important point that you make and you know through programs like Leading Age and with our work with our clients and and you know progressive clients like like Goodwin Living, you know we’re always trying to fight ageism. and I think that’s so important to recognize that that folks, regardless of age, want to you know be contributing members of society, whatever that might might mean. and But getting back to Stronger Memory, let’s talk numbers.

 

33:40.70

Varsity

how many communities are currently using the stronger memory program and how many people have used

 

33:47.03

Rob Liebreich

Yeah, overall, since we launched, and and I think you know we provided the curriculum in 2019, COVID came along, as we all know. So that that shifted things. We were doing things in person and then went to more of a virtual program really in 2020 when we were sort of testing ah with with our early pilot programs, with our residents, and our Goodwood Living at Home members.

 

34:10.67

Rob Liebreich

and And since then, in 2021 is when we really, I think June of 2021 is when we really put it out there to the world to download and and really come along. And since June of 2021, we’re tracking about 35,000 folks who have utilized the program.

 

34:27.48

Rob Liebreich

And that’s inclusive of, ah you know it’s such ah ah such an interesting variety of people. We have individuals you know downloading it for their own use. ah We have senior centers that have really started to adopt it widely across. ah We’ve had ah communities, you know settings, you know life life plan communities, et cetera, assisted living communities that have adopted it.

 

34:49.51

Rob Liebreich

and and And often we don’t know who they are or what they’re doing with it. We don’t we don’t really care. Actually, we want them just to use it. But we do we have built in more tools for for those folks, more facilitator trainings and things like that for free ah to encourage them.

 

35:04.49

Rob Liebreich

ah My mom has been on the circuit a lot, especially if you’re in Oregon, you probably have had her call you and say, hey, I’ve got a story I want to tell and a tool I want to provide for you.

 

35:06.50

Varsity

Great.

 

35:13.71

Rob Liebreich

And so she’s done a lot of talks leading age Oregon and a number of communities she’s been out to just telling her story and sharing the good news, if you will. So, and then we forget that village to village network, where we’ve probably worked with over 50% of those chapters now across the country, which is powerful and meaningful. And we’re starting to see even states, you know, we had a really important work with the state of Maryland.

 

35:39.32

Rob Liebreich

ah to roll the program out to to nearly 50 senior centers within that but then that ah environment. And it worked out great for those that participated. and We’re working with a number of states right now to to continue to build on on the energy. We’d love to get to a national platform. You know, love to work with the Veterans Administration.

 

35:58.38

Rob Liebreich

and other organizations to to be able to provide ah the pathway to it. And I would say we provide it for free. We provide free training, but it does take some promotion. It does take some encouragement to keep people going with it. ah So there’s not it’s not a cost from our vantage point, but there is a cost if you want to you know promote it and get people started with it. But yeah, we’re tracking about 35,000 folks. We’ve had some really good press.

 

36:23.19

Rob Liebreich

desert news Desert News in Utah ah did a nice publication for us, and we didn’t know that was gonna happen. ah we We ended up in ah and a program called Bottom Line Health, which has about 175,000 readers to it.

 

36:39.78

Rob Liebreich

there It’s a paid subscription service. A lot of interest has come from that, and and Jessica Fredrickson, who’s our our brain health director, wrote an article for that. And so we’re just seeing all these different ways, but I’m looking forward Right now, we’re working with a number of physician groups.

 

36:54.54

Varsity

Hmm. Hmm.

 

36:56.05

Rob Liebreich

Kaiser Permanente has started to work with us and just started to say, oh, maybe this is good for our patients. ah We love that. We love those kind of relationships. And we’re just coming around.

 

37:07.09

Rob Liebreich

We’ve done a number of different ah studies with George Mason, and we’re just coming into a control group ah study. ah which I think is sort of the gold standard for all these kind of ah programs to to say, yes, this works. ah we We know it works. I know it works. ah We’ve proven it out a couple of different ways. We even worked with ah people who are ah predominantly Korean speaking and had good success with that ah cohort and seeing where socialization really was highlighted as a key factor for you know doing even better with the program.

 

37:39.49

Rob Liebreich

So yeah, about 35,000 so far. and And hopefully if we do it right, you referenced the 10 million people love to get to a million people as soon as possible. Uh, and I know we’ve got to get to a hundred thousand before we do that, but and the more, more people that can use this, uh, the better. And I think as a country, we will certainly benefit from it. Cause you know, you and I ah know that there’s just not enough caregivers out there also. And that’s one of the big things that it’s driving us is.

 

38:06.35

Rob Liebreich

we see this huge, beautiful population growth of older adults.

 

38:09.59

Varsity

Yeah.

 

38:10.41

Rob Liebreich

And it’s coming exactly at the same time that we have fewer babies and our immigration policies are still getting figured out. So we’re not welcoming in as many caregivers as we need. So ah we need tools like this that that push off the need for care.

 

38:23.83

Rob Liebreich

That’s that’s our our our key focus. So when you have other guests on that are from the Senate or otherwise, you know, make sure you you help us ah get this push forward. That would be really, really great.

 

38:32.99

Varsity

Absolutely. and you know Adopting the program seems like an easy decision. you know you You mentioned that there certainly can be a cost for them to promote it, but why do you think more communities aren’t jumping on it yet? It’s available for free. what what What do you see as a ah barrier?

 

38:51.71

Rob Liebreich

Yeah, I think ah time is probably the biggest barrier that anyone has, both individuals and ah organizations. And so our our best situation is when we get a resident who says, Oh, I want to, I want to lead this. I want to volunteer to lead this for my other residents in our community. And and it’s so easy because as, as someone who’s a facilitator, what we call a facilitator, we say, you just need energy. You need positive energy.

 

39:17.31

Rob Liebreich

And to be able to you know come back every week or every day or however frequently,  that’s it. and And that’s all you need as key tools. So I think it’s really getting out the message of how simple it is, how effective is effective it is. I was just on a call today with ah but a group of CEOs. And one of them said, you know we’ve rolled this out. you They have a number of communities. but they said the two communities that chose to adopt it, it’s going great.

 

39:41.56

Rob Liebreich

People love it. It’s easy. It’s simple. It’s effective. Uh, there’s no cost to it. Right.

 

39:46.48

Varsity

Nope.

 

39:46.83

Rob Liebreich

Uh, but there’s still time. It still takes time. So you have to build it into your, your daily habit. And I think ideally what we’d say or hope for is if you’re in a community setting, if you’re in a community setting, you’re already doing all the parts.

 

40:01.31

Rob Liebreich

It’s just a matter of, of doing them in a slightly different way. So you’re already reading the daily news, probably if you’re an assisted living community. let’s ah Let’s not read it to people. Let’s have them you have our residents read it back to us. right Let’s have our memory residents read it back to us, not just read for them. ah Let’s have them do the writing prompts. Let’s have them have some fun and do some do some math ah together. I was at a a community in Oregon just visiting.

 

40:27.96

Rob Liebreich

My mom was checking out a place, ah Rose Villa, and it’s a great community. And I saw this beautiful piece of artwork and it was literally just flashcard numbers ah posted up on a piece of art.

 

40:39.33

Varsity

Hmm.

 

40:41.09

Rob Liebreich

I thought, perfect. What if we just you know put that into every community where where you have flashcard numbers that are just around in different settings. you know You go down the hallway and you can do your quick, simple math while you’re walking through the hallways.

 

40:53.17

Rob Liebreich

I just think there’s a lot of other ways that we can embed this into the experience where people will just not even realize that they’re doing the work, but they’re doing the work.

 

40:54.35

Varsity

That’s great.

 

41:01.66

Rob Liebreich

so

 

41:02.37

Varsity

That’s great. That’s great. Now, your director of brain hell, Jessica Fredrickson has talked about the value of mindfulness and meditation. Do you see the potential for the stronger memory program to ah expand to envelop mindfulness and and meditation?

 

41:19.01

Rob Liebreich

Yeah, I think there’s so many great tools. And one of the things that we we love doing is educating ourselves and then educating others on all these other, ah what’s going on in brain health, right? The discussions around brain health. So what you find out from us is yes, mindfulness and meditation.

 

41:37.66

Rob Liebreich

It can be really powerful, ah keeping stress low. and We talked about that anxiety factor, right, early. ah So keeping the anxiety low is is really powerful for the brain. And there’s a lot of other things that are powerful to the brain. you know Sleep, a critical path. and getting Getting enough ah consistent sleep, really, really important.

 

41:56.16

Rob Liebreich

and not enough people ah pay attention to that. you know I have this debate with my parents, like sleep isn’t waking up six times in the night. That isn’t consistent sleep. It might be happening. So let’s take a step back.

 

42:06.10

Varsity

Mm hmm.

 

42:06.78

Rob Liebreich

Let’s figure out how to get more hours ah consistently. ah But there’s there’s so many factors going on. And so I think mindfulness and meditation are a key area.

 

42:17.89

Rob Liebreich

I think there’s a lot of research that’s coming out. There’s so much good work happening right now. the the government is putting many more resources into ah this work, which is critical.

 

42:28.56

Rob Liebreich

And with all that said, I would say we’re not as an organization, we’re not experts in this area. what What we can come back to is we know that there’s some very simple tools that people everyone ki can execute with.

 

42:42.11

Rob Liebreich

We really encourage people to do that. ah and And then physical exercise. yeah Of all the things that are out there, ah keeping the blood flowing through the brain and making sure that that consistency happens you know and it gets elevated ah through good exercise, 20 to 30 minutes a day of physical exercise. Between physical exercise and this work of cognitive ah exercise, I really think those two parts together probably could push off the need for care for for for most people if they engaged an hour a day in those two areas.

 

43:17.09

Varsity

Great points. Good thoughts. So as we near the end of our time together, I want to give you an opportunity to speak directly to the people who are interested in the program. So if a community or or some organization doesn’t have to be a Lifeline community, is interested in adopting stronger memory program, how do they get started?

 

43:35.34

Rob Liebreich

Yeah, we try to make it as simple as possible and we keep on learning new ways to try to simplify the process. StrongerMemory.org is is the first thing to do. StrongerMemory.org. That will route you to a website where you can download the program. ah Today we offer the program in English or Spanish, electronic version for free. If folks want to get the book, it’s about, it’s almost about 200 pages. ah They can certainly order the book from us at cost. We we don’t charge a premium for that.

 

44:05.15

Rob Liebreich

either English or Spanish. And then if they want, there’s another option on that site, which says that if you want to be a facilitator, if you want to create a group. And we have groups starting up in synagogues and in mosques and in in churches all throughout the country. ah We’ve got groups starting in senior centers and civic groups. and We’ve got to make communities for sure at these village to village networks. There’s just a lot of different places where libraries are starting to get into it because, oh, we promote reading out loud.

 

44:34.88

Rob Liebreich

right So now you’re creating that that connection. So if if there’s anyone of your listeners that want to get started, strongermemory.org, and then choose your adventure. Do you want to download for yourself? Great. ah You want to download or send a book to someone else as ah as a gift? Great. Do you want to become a facilitator? Fantastic. And recognize that all of this is done through the generosity of donors. We don’t charge anything.

 

44:59.17

Rob Liebreich

ah But if if folks want to you know say, hey, i want I want to go help a million people ah with you, Rob, great. Let us know if you have some resource to help us do that, either publicity or a financial resource. And we definitely put it to good use.

 

45:12.93

Varsity

Well, that’s great. Well, we before we get to our final question, I’d love to hear about some of the other exciting initiatives that Goodwin Living has in store, particularly the Citizenship Playbook. We’ve talked a lot about that over over the the last you know a few years. Can you talk a little about that and anything else you’d like to share?

 

45:30.82

Rob Liebreich

Yeah, there’s so much going on with Good Will Living that is exciting. And thank you for the opportunity to share a little just a little bit. But you referenced the citizenship program that started with the idea of a resident back in 2018, the idea that our we our team members represent over 65 different countries in the world. And about a number of them, you know upwards of 25% to 40% of them are a global workforce that are not US citizens.

 

45:57.31

Rob Liebreich

And so ah the residents said, gosh, I’d really like to come around people to help them if they want to become US citizens on their path to US citizenship. And there’s a fees associated with that. And there’s a test that’s hard to get through. And so we have figured out a way to help over and coming up on over 200 people.

 

46:14.79

Rob Liebreich

ah towards their US citizenship. And we pay for the fees of the test, but now we also marry a resident with ah with a team member seeking that citizenship. So you get a resident mentor, which is back to that purpose equation that we talked about and and the potential ah that is within all of our residents. So really powerful program and we’ve extended it. and Now we’ve extended it to family members, not just Our initial ah team members, but if they have a loved one ah a child that they want to get into the US citizenship as well ah We’ll support that and and so that’s been that’s been really rewarding really powerful.

 

46:39.84

Varsity

for

 

46:50.77

Rob Liebreich

I’d say the other ah Exciting news for us in programming wise is our work on internships.

 

46:56.58

Varsity

it.

 

46:57.71

Rob Liebreich

ah we’ve We’ve had ah now I think this year over 50 paid internships also through our foundation and supported through the generosity of donors. And what that’s allowed us to do is is touch early the lives of high schoolers and college students and show them this field.

 

47:14.78

Rob Liebreich

And that’s allowed us to hire a number of them on as full-time team members, which is great. but more important to be able to share the story and for them to see. And as you come in as an intern, what do you think we do? We tie you to a resident mentor. ah So you also have those nice intergenerational actions and people walk away every time.

 

47:35.45

Rob Liebreich

i

 

47:35.54

Varsity

Hmm.

 

47:36.05

Rob Liebreich

just about universally saying, I didn’t realize how fun, how cool, how exciting, how meaningful ah that work was.

 

47:38.78

Varsity

Okay.

 

47:42.08

Rob Liebreich

So I’d say that internship program side is something that certainly could be should be replicated. The citizenship work should be, could be replicated by anyone ah following ah following us.

 

47:53.72

Rob Liebreich

We have a whole playbook on the citizenship side. We’re working on a playbook on the internship side. And then a newer venture for us is We have a number of very talented therapists that work in our, on our team. And we’ve decided that we want to make sure that not only do our current residents get really good fitness in programming exercise, as we talked about being another key elixir, uh, but that anyone can have access to, uh, to good physical exercise. So we have a library of of hundreds of videos for exercise that I think we’re going to start to call, you know, curate and get out to the rest of the world.

 

48:30.07

Rob Liebreich

if you will, and then we’re sponsoring classes. We’ve helped ah upwards of 2,000 people in low-income housing settings around Northern Virginia ah engage in physical consistent physical exercise. And we’re getting wait lists there ah from all of different backgrounds, all different socioeconomic backgrounds as well. But I think those are the areas that we’re really excited about.

 

48:51.06

Varsity

That’s great. Well, I hope you’ll come back in the future and tell us, go a little bit deeper in some of those, too, which sound really exciting.

 

48:58.03

Rob Liebreich

It would be an honor.

 

48:58.11

Varsity

That’s great.

 

48:58.82

Rob Liebreich

It would be an honor.

 

48:59.63

Varsity

That’s great. Well, one last question. We end each episode of Roundtable Talk with this question. What have you learned that you wish you could have told your younger self?

 

49:09.63

Rob Liebreich

I think for my younger self and when I talk to even our children, we have three young children about is ah believe that you can make a difference, find your path and keep going. And I think that’s exactly what’s happened you know with the stronger memory work. There was a real real reason you know for for the love and sake of of our mom ah that i I sought out solutions and then figured out a way to do something for her. but I i i had stopped at thinking that maybe it could help other people. And sometimes you need to listen to the sages around you, the prompts, the friends around you, like Judy Wadsworth in my in my case, to push you forward. And when that happens, like there’s a reason for it. So lean into it, be excited about it.

 

49:58.33

Rob Liebreich

I think I’ve done a decent job of that, but I can imagine if I if i had started this three years earlier, allowing everyone ah in on it, not just a certain ah small group, you know, how many more lives could have been positive positively impacted. So that that weighs on me a little bit, but it also pushes me to try to figure out, you know, as an organization, how can we get the word out? So really appreciate spending time with you and and being able to share.

 

50:22.98

Varsity

Absolutely. Well, you know that’s that’s very noble. But I have to say, it’s it’s it is amazing that you saw this need. you You kind of triangulated with this opportunity that you learned at the conference.

 

50:34.74

Varsity

And you put it together. And and and you know again, you’ve you’ve given this this gift to the world. And so thank you for that. And thank you for your time today. Really, really appreciate it.

 

50:46.47

Rob Liebreich

Thank you. Great joy.

 

50:47.90

Varsity

All right. Well, we’ll see you on the next episode of Roundtable Talk.

 

50:52.36

Rob Liebreich

Thanks again.

 

50:53.09

Varsity

Thank you.

 

Quotes

“I’ve started a new enterprise as an octagenarian standup. I do a solo show. There’s some audience singing and I toss in some poems. I string together stories. It’s great fun.” (Garrison)

“I try to stay away from politics, though it’s not always possible.” (Garrison)

“I’m hoping to continue to be lucky (as I age). People I know who get into their 90s run some real risks that we all want to avoid.” (Garrison)

“I accomplish meditation by way of writing. I do it early in the morning. I sometimes wake up at 3 and 4 in the morning. I’m awakened by ideas. They’re not always taking the form of words, but they want to. And so I arise in the dark and I make coffee and I sit down and try to put the ideas into words.” (Garrison)

“The (delete button) is wonderful. The best. If only there was a way to take a ray gun and delete whole piles of things on my desk I would do it.” (Garrison)

“My bookshelves are full of books I will never read. And so I’m at the deletion stage of life. I want to make life smaller and smaller.” (Garrison)

“Performing has its own end and it will come to” an end. I hope that I recognize (the end) before other people do.” (Garrison)

“I am working with an audience – people my age and their children and some of their grandchildren – who, when I say ‘It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota,’ they laugh. They recognize this. Somehow, without intending to, I’ve become a familiar person to them.” (Garrison)

“I like to exit through the audience and I like to stand out in the lobby. And here comes a young woman with a nose ring. Here comes a middle-aged woman whose left arm is covered with tattoos. These are people I didn’t know were in my audience.” (Garrison)

“I think that politics and government has become discouraging to many people. But I think that the big enemy is isolation. Many people are more isolated than I remember being in my middle years. Partly as a result of this technology that you and I are using right now.” (Garrison)

“I do have regrets. Of course I do. I think I worked too hard for a period of my life and I don’t think I was a particularly good father. I had two marriages that did not work out and of course I regret my part in that.” (Garrison)

“I think I am a Minnesotan. I’m not even sure exactly what that means. First of all, it means don’t think you’re somebody – and I don’t. I still have the sensation when I do my show and I come to the end and I am embarrassed by applause.” (Garrison)

“There’s no time to waste. And so, don’t. Don’t waste it.” (Garrison)

I like to be old. I think it’s humorous. And I like to comment on it, especially to younger people.” (Garrison)

“I think that every person in their 20s should have somebody in his or her 80s to pay attention to. I’m not sure that I did when I was in my 20s.” (Garrison)

“I remember what it felt like to be young. I don’t run anymore. I suppose I could, but it doesn’t bother me that I can’t.” (Garrison)

Notes

Garrison Keillor is an American author, humorist, and radio personality best known for creating and hosting A Prairie Home Companion. His work captures the charm of Midwestern life, blending storytelling, music, and wit. Keillor has authored numerous books and remains a celebrated figure in American humor and literature.

Serenity at 70, Gaiety at 80 by Garrison Keillor is a reflective, humorous memoir exploring life in his seventies and eighties. Keillor shares stories and insights on aging, love, and everyday joys, blending his signature wit and warmth to celebrate the beauty of growing older with grace and laughter.

Despite being retired from A Prairie Home Companion for eight years, Garrison is still very active as a writer – writing two columns each week – and as a performer.

Garrison had heart surgery in which he received a valve from a young pig. To this day, he’s appreciative to the pig and avoids eating pork because it’s “the decent thing to do.”

Garrison credits quitting drinking 20 years ago at 62 with restoring his early mornings and allowing him to rise early each day.

On the topic of whether he’s a Minnesotan or New Yorker, Garrison says he’s not sure and it’s for other people to decide. He does admit that he thinks he’s a Minnesotan.

Transcript

03:44.35
varsitybranding
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the very first episode of Roundtable Talk. Our goal is to share fresh perspectives about aging, retirement, longevity, and a variety of other topics related to issues facing today’s older adults.

03:57.69
varsitybranding
To say that I’m excited to introduce our first ever guest would be an understatement. Joining us is Garrison Keeler, a man whose accomplishments and resume are too long to mention here, but I’ll list a few things. 40 years as host of a Prairie Home Companion, best-selling author, a member of the National Radio Hall of Fame, one of the funniest people in America at any age, and someone who refuses to let age get in the way of staying busy. Garrison, thank you so much for joining us and welcome to Roundtable Talk.

04:26.31
Garrison Keillor
It’s my pleasure. Good to talk to a fellow Midwesterner, albeit one from North Dakota.

04:34.30
varsitybranding
Yes, indeed. I can’t think of but a better way to kick off the podcast, especially for me personally. You know, as you mentioned, I’m from North Dakota and a fellow Golden Gopher. I’ve attended many of your book readings around the Twin Cities and our family even journeyed to California to your final broadcast from the Hollywood Bowl.

04:51.17
Garrison Keillor
I remember that Hollywood Bowl show very well. I took the wrong exit coming off the stage. After the show was over, we stood around with the audience for a while and we sang. We sang all these old songs. And then I took the wrong exit and I found myself in a crowd of people leaving leaving the ball. And it was very it was it was wonderful.

05:24.06
Garrison Keillor
we We mixed and we mingled.

05:27.64
varsitybranding
That’s great. That’s wonderful. And I know you often do that. You’ll come down into the crowd after the you know after your shows. And I remember you telling a story because when we were there, it was in the evening. And typically your broadcast is live at five o’clock central, I think, which would be you know three o’clock Pacific. And you said it had to be.

05:47.93
varsitybranding
done in the evening and tape delayed because ah you had done it once before in the afternoon and in the California heat in July, you don’t want people sitting out there for for two hours and in the under the hot sun.

06:01.47
varsitybranding
So, well, as of last week, you’re 82. Happy birthday, by the way. but you haven’t slept

06:06.90
Garrison Keillor
it slide do i I went out on the road doing shows to avoid having a birthday party. and But I made the mistake of telling audiences that I was doing this. And so they all sang to me anyway. So I heard it eight times in 10 days.

06:28.85
varsitybranding
Why can promise you I will not sing happy birthday to you right now?

06:32.21
Garrison Keillor
but Thank you. Thank you.

06:33.48
varsitybranding
Yes, yes, yes, but you haven’t slowed down as we were just talking about it’s been eight years since your last episode of a Prairie Home Companion But you’re still writing still traveling and touring.

06:33.66
Garrison Keillor
I appreciate that.

06:44.08
varsitybranding
What’s your secret? What keeps you going?

06:46.38
Garrison Keillor
I lost my ambition, I think is the is the answer. And i i’m I’m doing it for the pleasure of it.

06:57.74
Garrison Keillor
And, you know, my my

06:57.86
varsitybranding
Hmm.

07:02.66
Garrison Keillor
I cut back on some things. I ah no longer go and do lectures to groups.

07:14.07
varsitybranding
Okay.

07:14.38
Garrison Keillor
or that was That was pointless because I i was trying too hard to speak to their particular interest. And so I’ve started this this new,

07:29.68
Garrison Keillor
Enterprise as an octogenarian stand-up. I do a solo show and there’s some audience singing a little bit and I toss in some poems but I string together stories but each show is different and because I don’t work from a script and it’s it’s just great fun. I also enjoy writing a column.

07:55.94
Garrison Keillor
I write to a week 750 words, and it’s a, and it’s a wonderful. It’s a wonderful form, I try to stay away from politics, though it’s not always possible.

08:10.04
Garrison Keillor
and

08:11.60
varsitybranding
There’s a little bit to write about when it comes to politics right now, right?

08:14.59
Garrison Keillor
Well, that yeah, but but other people are are writing in a much more interesting fashion.

08:21.82
varsitybranding
Sure.

08:22.51
Garrison Keillor
And I don’t ah don’t pay that much attention.

08:28.13
varsitybranding
Good.

08:28.84
Garrison Keillor
But there are you know interesting characters, as we all know. and and it is And it is always a good subject for satire.

08:40.59
varsitybranding
Indeed indeed. Now you mentioned that you’d like to live to be 97 just like your mother. What are you looking forward to as you age?

08:49.15
Garrison Keillor
Well, I’m hoping to to continue to be lucky. People I know who get into the 90s decade, you know, run some real real risks that we all want to avoid. But medicine is is is marching forward.

09:15.61
Garrison Keillor
And I think that they’re solving some of these problems. I had a stroke, I think about five years ago, but in the meantime, this anti-seizure medication has come along, levatoracitin, and they can increase this dosage I had a little episode doing a show out on Long Island, I think two years ago, of aphasia.

09:52.90
Garrison Keillor
It came at the end of a show. I was about to say, good night. And then I couldn’t form words.

10:01.53
varsitybranding
Wow.

10:02.33
Garrison Keillor
And I stood there and something, you know, the audience looking at me and Then something clicked in my brain and I started to sing Old Lang Syne.

10:16.59
Garrison Keillor
And so that made a fitting end to the show. And a stage manager came out and guided me backstage and the EMTs were all in there. These wonderful men. And, you know, they packed me off on a gurney and took me to a hospital and so forth. And they simply upped the dosage of this levatoracitum. And it never has happened since.

10:45.30
varsitybranding
Well, thank God. and And boy, you know how to end a show, don’t you?

10:45.82
Garrison Keillor
So medicine is on our side. And and so this this I think offers some real possibilities.

10:50.31
varsitybranding
Indeed.

10:55.87
Garrison Keillor
My mother was good right up till she, I think, hit around 96. But it wasn’t so bad. She carried on conversations with her beloved sister, Elsie, who had died a number of years before.

11:18.03
Garrison Keillor
But she was conversing with her. And she paused and listened to some sort of response. And then she responded to what she thought Elsie had said.

11:30.90
varsitybranding
Mm

11:31.76
Garrison Keillor
Not a dreadful thing.

11:33.98
varsitybranding
hmm. Absolutely. And since you’re talking about some of your your health episodes, I happen to have your your book Cheerfulness here and was reading it. And it was interesting, you were talking about, I believe it was a pig valve that that you had installed. Is that correct?

11:51.60
Garrison Keillor
Yes, yes, a Val from a young pig and Dr. Durrani at Mayo Clinic did the work and it was ah it was a it was a clean, successful operation.

12:09.83
varsitybranding
That’s great. I think you said in the book that you’re appreciative of the pig, but you’re not now suddenly going to become a standard bearer for pigs and and pig treatment, right?

12:20.06
Garrison Keillor
I have avoided pork since I had this procedure. I just felt it was was the decent thing to do.

12:31.71
varsitybranding
That’s great, that’s great. In 2017, you said in an interview that relaxation is a dangerous thing, it’s to be avoided. Retirement is very perilous. You know, seven years on, do you still feel that way?

12:45.52
Garrison Keillor
I’m not sure, I think that i think that relaxation,

12:55.22
Garrison Keillor
by relaxation I think I mean just sitting around, but but there is room for meditation. and But meditation is a discipline.

13:09.55
Garrison Keillor
And I think that I accomplish meditation by way of writing. And that I do it early in the morning. I sometimes wake up at three and four in the morning. I’m awakened by ideas.

13:38.16
Garrison Keillor
And they are not always taking the form of words, but they want to.

13:47.66
varsitybranding
Hmm.

13:48.53
Garrison Keillor
And so I arise in the dark and I make coffee and I sit down and I try to put them into words. To me, this is a crucial thing that was helped along by the fact that when I was 62, 20 years ago, I simply stopped alcohol.

14:18.92
Garrison Keillor
And I did it because I had a little girl, and I i was ah i was a two-fisted drinker.

14:19.12
varsitybranding
Hmm.

14:33.72
Garrison Keillor
I didn’t embarrass myself. I don’t think I did. But but I didn’t want her to grow up with this father.

14:45.47
Garrison Keillor
and And so I simply stopped. And but that restores your early morning.

14:51.88
varsitybranding
That’s interesting. Sure it does.

14:56.95
Garrison Keillor
You rediscover the early morning. a Before that, you know, your your early morning can often be hung over, and you may not recover until afternoon, and you lose.

15:11.93
Garrison Keillor
You lose a real asset as a writer, a real asset. And I’m glad I discovered that when I was when I was 62.

15:18.38
varsitybranding
Sure.

15:24.30
varsitybranding
That’s great. Hey, no time like the like the present, right?

15:27.92
Garrison Keillor
Yes, it’s never too late.

15:29.76
varsitybranding
Never too late. the Well said. Well said. Now, I’m curious. You said you sometimes wake up at three or four in the morning with an idea. you You fix a ah pot of coffee. Do you have a and ah tape recorder, an audio recorder, or do you mull it over in your mind?

15:44.32
varsitybranding
How do you hold on to those ideas? Because I find some of those things that you know I have clarity when I wake up, and by the time I’m moving about, it’s gone.

15:53.03
Garrison Keillor
You have to put them down on paper, I think is is helpful. I don’t sit down at a laptop, i but I sit down with a paper and pen and I want to put down whatever words come to mind, sentences if possible. But when I’m working on a book, which I’m doing now, when I’m working on a book, then I have a framework for these ideas. There’s some place in this book for this to go. I’m working on a Lake Wobegon novel now and I’m

16:40.65
Garrison Keillor
up to 40,000 words and I think I’m probably about two-thirds of the way done.

16:46.51
varsitybranding
Oh, great, great. Well, again, in the book Cheerfulness, you talk about the delete button and how, you know, talk a little about that. I loved your story about, you know, how how freeing the delete button can be.

16:58.64
Garrison Keillor
Oh, it’s wonderful. It’s the best thing. If there were only, you know, some way that I could take a ray gun and delete a whole piles of things on my desk.

17:12.26
Garrison Keillor
I would do it.

17:14.76
varsitybranding
That’s great.

17:15.86
Garrison Keillor
My bookshelves are full of books I will never read. And so I’m at the deletion stage of of life.

17:26.40
varsitybranding
Sure.

17:26.50
Garrison Keillor
I want to make life smaller and smaller.

17:31.06
varsitybranding
And how are you doing that? I know we when we talk with folks who are you know in their 60s, 70s, 80s, downsizing is is a big part of it. But you’re still you know out there living your life. You’re still traveling. How are you kind of sorting through everything and determining what to keep, what to what to set aside?

17:52.12
Garrison Keillor
The big change came when I decided to live full time in New York. My wife loves New York. She’s a Minnesotan, but she came here when she was 16, 17 to study violin at Manhattan School of Music and to become a freelance violinist. And she lived here through many years of near poverty as a musician.

18:19.35
varsitybranding
Hm.

18:21.66
Garrison Keillor
And so she really learned the city and she learned self-sufficiency. She learned to combat ah depression by walking. Walking, walking, walking, walking. And she and she’s she’s ah she’s a walker in the city. She does six, seven, eight, maybe 10 miles a day. I came here because she had lived my life in St. Paul when we married.

18:54.83
Garrison Keillor
And now that I left the radio show, it was her turn.

19:00.91
varsitybranding
that’s great that’s great

19:01.08
Garrison Keillor
So I came to the city because whatever you can do to make your wife happy is a good thing to do. And moving to the city where I’m a stranger,

19:15.60
Garrison Keillor
suddenly my time becomes very free. I know a few people. I used to work at the New Yorker magazine. I have a few friends from there, but mostly my time is very free.

19:32.63
Garrison Keillor
I don’t drive anymore and so I’m a pedestrian and suddenly life becomes much, much simpler and I’m not in charge of an office of people. I was never a good manager and so that part of my life is all over. I simply get up in the morning and I need to take care of myself.

19:57.07
varsitybranding
That’s great. That’s great. So do you see a day when you’ll truly retire when you’re no longer touring and performing for audiences? What does retirement look like for Garrison Keillor?

20:08.00
Garrison Keillor
ah Performing has its own end and and it will and it will come to an end.

20:15.85
varsitybranding
I hope it’s a very, you know, very long in the future.

20:18.78
Garrison Keillor
Well, I don’t know. i I just hope that I recognize it before other people do.

20:26.46
varsitybranding
Interesting.

20:26.85
Garrison Keillor
But to I think it i think it I think it has ah a good way to come. I think that I do a different sort of show than most stand-up comics. And I have so much material from having done monologues about Lake Wobegon.

20:52.73
Garrison Keillor
ah that I can weave it in different directions. I can revise it. I can i can play with it. It’s a very playful thing. I never try to memorize or work from a set outline.

21:12.51
Garrison Keillor
so it’s So it’s fun to do. I stay away from politics. Other people do that much better and I am working with an audience, people my age, and their children and some of their grandchildren.

21:31.88
Garrison Keillor
who, when I say it’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, say they they they laugh. they They recognize this. i Somehow, without intending to, I became a familiar person to them. And I say, you know, it’s the town where all the women are strong, and the men are good looking, and all the children are above average, and they laugh.

22:00.77
varsitybranding
That’s great.

22:00.94
Garrison Keillor
I say, you know, I refer to Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery. If you can’t find it at Ralph’s, you can get along without it. And they laugh. And so onward we go.

22:12.85
varsitybranding
That’s great. That’s great. Now, more recently, you wrote on your website, the beauty of octogenarian is and octogenarianism is freedom. Your career is over. You’re done. You look out at the crowd and see people googling your name to figure out who you are. You were just mentioning that there is a yeah a wide age range at your group, at some of your shows. you know Can you expand on that? Does it really happen? Or I’m sure there was a lot of self-deprecating humor in there, but I love that quote.

22:43.39
Garrison Keillor
I walk out into the lobby. I like to exit through the audience. And I like to stand out in the lobby. I’ve been lucky so far. I only picked up COVID once.

22:56.53
varsitybranding
Hm.

22:57.41
Garrison Keillor
and And here comes a young woman with ah with a nose ring. Here comes a middle-aged woman whose left arm is covered with tattoos. These are people I didn’t know.

23:14.62
Garrison Keillor
were in my audience.

23:18.09
Garrison Keillor
There are plenty of men with ponytails. There are plenty of male couples who appear to me to be couples. I’m sure they are. And so it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s interesting to go out and and see these people. And they want to tell me, you know, I grew up with your show. I love your show. My father, my late father loved your show. And you listen to that. And then you start asking them questions. And they’re happy to talk about themselves. And in this way, you you you learn about your audience and you also pick up material.

24:11.01
Garrison Keillor
that you can use farther down the road. It’s so it’s it’s a very, I hesitate to use the word joyful, but it but it is actually sort of joyful. They are fond of me in ways that I’m a little embarrassed by, but I turn the tables on them and I find out What do you do? What do you do? Not just how do you earn a living, but but what’s your purpose? What what are you what do you here on Earth for? and And tell me a little bit about your parents and your ancestry. And they will talk and talk and talk. It’s fun.

25:03.55
varsitybranding
That’s great. I do remember a time ah our family was at a performance of, I think it was Twelfth Night with Mark Rylance, and we were leaving the theater and you happened to be standing there amongst the crowd, so I went up and introduced myself and our son, who was probably, you know,

25:24.10
varsitybranding
12 or 13 was there, and I just remember you putting your arm on ah or your hand on his shoulder and leaning in and and asking him you know questions about him, just like you just said, and and it was really, I think, a meaningful time for him, so that’s that’s wonderful.

25:39.92
Garrison Keillor
It was a meaningful time for me.

25:42.13
varsitybranding
That’s great, that’s great. Well, you know, you have a few shows coming up in September, as we’ve talked about, and the theme is cheerfulness, and it’s the title of your most recent book, as I mentioned earlier. Do you think that America needs some cheering up?

25:54.50
Garrison Keillor
I do, I do. i think that I think that politics, government has become discouraging to many people.

26:09.79
Garrison Keillor
and But I think that the big enemy is isolation.

26:15.40
varsitybranding
Hm.

26:16.68
Garrison Keillor
And many people are more isolated than I remember being in my middle years, partly as a result of this technology that you and I are using right now.

26:32.42
Garrison Keillor
which makes it possible for many more people to sit alone, be at home, do their work, have some kind of social life on social media. But it’s it’s a perilous life to my mind. and i And I remember my social life When I was in college, I remember ah remember family gatherings. I remember the close proximity of people ah playing on a softball team, sitting sitting in in a beer joint, a whole group of men packed into a booth.

27:29.74
Garrison Keillor
and and alcohol was not the main reason to be there. The main reason was to talk and tell jokes.

27:38.75
varsitybranding
Hm.

27:44.02
Garrison Keillor
And and we and we did this. I remember parties where people stood around and sang.

27:57.22
Garrison Keillor
And and i I’m not sure that I have a sense that we are leaving this culture behind.

28:08.99
varsitybranding
Hmm.

28:09.33
Garrison Keillor
I try to keep it going in the shows that I do, and I find a way to ask the audience to sing My Country Tis of the Sweet Land of Liberty.

28:24.89
Garrison Keillor
If they are singers, which I would say most audiences are, we would go on and maybe sing the Battle Hand of the Republic. If they’re in certain parts of the country, surely if I did a show and in North Dakota, rural Minnesota, Utah, oh wow.

28:55.48
Garrison Keillor
Mormons. I do a show in Utah and we are definitely going to sing hymns. We’re going to sing abide with me fast falls the eventide. We’re going to sing when peace like a river attendeth my way and sorrows like sea billows roll whatever my lot thou has taught me to say it as well it is well with my soul and the singing.

29:19.52
varsitybranding
That’s great.

29:20.83
Garrison Keillor
I did a show at the Methodist camp in Ocean Grove, New Jersey and I walked out into the crowd and we sang it as well with my soul and sitting in a seat on the aisle I walked in, I would say about 20 rows in.

29:48.27
Garrison Keillor
It’s a huge, big auditorium. And sitting in an aisle seat all by himself with a pair of motorcycle boots ah was Bruce Springsteen.

30:00.83
varsitybranding
Hmm.

30:01.75
Garrison Keillor
And he was singing, it is well with my soul.

30:05.09
varsitybranding
What an amazing story.

30:07.50
Garrison Keillor
What an amazing sight.

30:09.59
varsitybranding
Yeah.

30:10.57
Garrison Keillor
Very nice guy, he came backstage afterward and, you know, we talked a little bit. But that’s the culture that I come from and I accept that it is changing, but I don’t want it to change too fast and entirely.

30:17.53
varsitybranding
That’s great.

30:32.23
varsitybranding
No, I feel that too.

30:33.58
Garrison Keillor
But i have I have great nephews who admit to me they do not know the words to the Star Spangled Banner.

30:43.51
varsitybranding
Wow.

30:44.82
Garrison Keillor
I don’t like that.

30:47.41
varsitybranding
I agree. It’s amazing how some of those things that you take for granted are not being passed along.

30:50.70
Garrison Keillor
I don’t like that. i’m ah I’m an old Democrat, but I don’t like the fact that they don’t they have not recited the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag and to the republic for which it stands. They do not know.

31:11.73
Garrison Keillor
I would like them to know the beatitudes. I would like them you know to be able to recite the Lord’s Prayer, but I especially would like them to be able to sing songs with other people.

31:25.23
varsitybranding
that’s that’s That’s beautiful.

31:26.11
Garrison Keillor
without looking at your cell phone.

31:28.36
varsitybranding
That’s right, that’s right. Hey, I’d like to spend a few minutes talking about your book Serenity at 70, Gayity at 80. And I have a copy of it here. You describe it as a book about the joyfulness of aging.

31:42.32
varsitybranding
In it, you tell stories about the beauty of getting older, getting kissed by Meryl Streep, and about mortality. You also offer 23 rules for aging. Can we talk about a few of those rules?

31:53.14
Garrison Keillor
I don’t remember those rules whatsoever. my ah My memory does not include things that I myself have written.

31:59.98
varsitybranding
Well, I’ll remind you of them if that’s okay. So rule number three was that regret is not so interesting.

32:04.20
Garrison Keillor
ah I do, of course I do.

32:07.32
varsitybranding
You know, you talk about here about letting go, moving on. Do you have any regrets?

32:14.53
Garrison Keillor
I do.

32:15.40
varsitybranding
And you don’t have to share them, but just curious.

32:18.04
Garrison Keillor
No, I absolutely do. I think I worked too hard. for a period of my life. And I don’t think I was a particularly good father.

32:31.85
varsitybranding
Hm.

32:33.03
Garrison Keillor
I don’t think children are absolutely dependent on on their parents. I certainly was not. My father worked double time.

32:48.56
Garrison Keillor
I had a number of aunts who were very sympathetic in ways that probably my father was not equipped to be.

33:01.68
varsitybranding
Hmm.

33:02.03
Garrison Keillor
But I do bet i do regret i do regret that. I had two ah marriages that did not work out. And of course, I i regret my part in that.

33:14.22
varsitybranding
Sure, sure. Well, thank you for sharing that. Rule number four was remember where you’re from. You tell a fantastic story about meeting a woman in Paris and telling her that you’ you’re from New York. She corrects you and says, no, you’re not. You’re from Anoka.

33:29.00
varsitybranding
So I know you talked about moving from St. Paul to New York. You’ve lived in New York for a few years now, but you’re indelibly linked with Minnesota. Would you call yourself a New Yorker or would you call yourself a Minnesotan?

33:40.29
Garrison Keillor
I don’t know, it’s not for me to decide. Other people can decide. My wife thinks that I fit in in New York. I mean, I i know how to converse with strangers, how to find some common base. I’m not all that patient going to ah Concerts, plays, I’m not patient at all going to art galleries. I i make up my mind much too soon and I don’t i don’t let them ah don’t let the work seep into my consciousness the way

34:28.51
Garrison Keillor
i should but I think I am a Minnesotan and I don’t you i’m I’m not even sure I’m not even sure exactly what that means I think it first of all it means don’t think you’re somebody and I don’t I still have the sensation when I do my show and I come to the end and I say, thank you everybody.

35:03.89
Garrison Keillor
I am embarrassed by applause.

35:06.36
varsitybranding
Hmm.

35:07.63
Garrison Keillor
And I walk off stage and I don’t know what to do. And stage manager says, go out there, go out there, go out there. So I go out there, but I find it embarrassing.

35:18.55
varsitybranding
Interesting.

35:19.68
Garrison Keillor
Yeah.

35:20.15
varsitybranding
Interesting. So do you get back to Anoka often?

35:24.69
Garrison Keillor
No, I don’t. I don’t get back often. I don’t. Most of my classmates left an OCA, but i bet I like talking too to them on the phone.

35:41.84
Garrison Keillor
i

35:44.68
Garrison Keillor
I’m missing a class reunion this summer. Some of the classmates whom I loved are gone and i and I still find this very painful.

36:03.91
varsitybranding
sure so know

36:06.11
Garrison Keillor
One of them died by suicide and I just cannot, I just cannot get get get get get into her death and i I keep running through in my own mind her last days, the last times I saw her and I so i just I cannot make sense of it.

36:21.80
varsitybranding
Sure, sure. Now i’m I’m really sorry to hear that. And I know in this day and age, it feels like people are are talking more about issues of mental health and and it’s it’s more acceptable to you know lean on other people, but you know obviously it still happens and it’s probably happening you know more regularly than ever in in some instances.

36:54.23
Garrison Keillor
Yes. Yes. Yeah.

36:56.30
varsitybranding
Well, thank you for sharing that.

36:59.17
Garrison Keillor
Yep.

36:59.30
varsitybranding
Rule number nine. Old age is foreign territory and you should enjoy it. You say, I make no bucket list. There’s nothing I need to do before I die.

37:08.94
Garrison Keillor
ah

37:08.92
varsitybranding
Each day is sufficient unto itself. Do you really have no bucket list? Nothing that’s unfulfilled?

37:15.55
Garrison Keillor
I’m thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking. i don’t think I don’t think there is any any and big unrealized purpose. i can’t I can’t think of any offhand.

37:37.26
Garrison Keillor
No, I think Shakespeare was right. He said, this though oh this thou which makes thy love more strong, to love that well which thou must leave ere long.

37:54.04
varsitybranding
Hmm.

37:54.27
Garrison Keillor
And and this is this is true. There’s no time to waste. And and so don’t don’t don’t. Don’t waste it.

38:06.13
Garrison Keillor
i I did not sit and watch the Paris Olympics. I found YouTube, which ran a nightly recap of it, but I didn’t turn on the TV and sit and watch.

38:25.88
Garrison Keillor
I don’t have that sort of time. I did get to see the Swedish pole vaulter and I got to watch the incredible 1500 meter run in which the American came up from nowhere and won it by about two feet and the the women’s relay and

38:31.26
varsitybranding
Hmm.

38:46.79
varsitybranding
That’s great.

38:52.14
Garrison Keillor
the shot put and some other and the breakdancing. My god, the break, the Olympic event.

38:58.97
varsitybranding
The memes that are happening with the breakdancing is amazing. I hear it’s not coming. It’s not going to be there in 2028 in LA. So once I’m done.

39:05.10
Garrison Keillor
Well, won by a Canadian. I never associated Canadians with breakdancing.

39:11.81
varsitybranding
Yeah, that’s that’s that’s amazing. But hey, it’s great to have things like YouTube and you know and the the ability to to kind of have it be broken down and and consume that kind of media when when you want.

39:22.92
varsitybranding
So yeah.

39:23.00
Garrison Keillor
It saves time. And this is crucial when you have when you have less time.

39:30.85
varsitybranding
Yeah. So I’ve got a couple more rules here. Rule number 18, be lucky. Here you talk about how luck is crucial and doing whatever it takes to improve your chances. And I know you touched on this earlier. You mentioned that you were lucky, but how lucky have you been? how Where do you think luck has played into your, you know, your, your, your amazing career, your, your life, etc.

39:52.60
Garrison Keillor
I chose my parents well, and as a result, I think I am in pretty good, steady condition.

40:04.26
Garrison Keillor
I knock on wood. I had some wonderful teachers. I had a teacher, my first grade teacher, Estelle Shaver. I remember my elementary school teachers.

40:20.49
varsitybranding
That’s great.

40:20.88
Garrison Keillor
I remember them very well. I would have to think hard to recall high school teachers and college instructors.

40:29.99
varsitybranding
Isn’t that interesting?

40:31.66
Garrison Keillor
College instructors are a blur to me. But Estelle Shaver was my first grade teacher, and she noticed that I was having difficulty reading.

40:45.96
Garrison Keillor
And she kept me after school. I was the only one she did this for. I stayed after school and I read aloud to her from Dick and Jane standing by her desk. And when the janitor Bill came in the room to empty waste baskets, I remember precisely what she said. We’re talking about 75 years ago.

41:15.32
varsitybranding
And what was it that she said?

41:16.99
Garrison Keillor
She said, listen to this boy, Bill, doesn’t he have a wonderful voice? He’s entertaining me while I’m correcting workbooks.

41:29.14
varsitybranding
Wow.

41:30.30
Garrison Keillor
And this was remedial reading, but she made this seem like a privilege that I had been given and that I was doing this as a favor to her.

41:30.34
varsitybranding
That’s great.

41:46.75
varsitybranding
Boy, the power of a good teacher, right?

41:48.57
Garrison Keillor
And this, and I would, I mean, I, i think that I think that she changed my life, this little act of kindness.

42:02.91
Garrison Keillor
Where it came from, I have no idea.

42:05.50
varsitybranding
That’s great.

42:06.25
Garrison Keillor
Yeah.

42:06.51
varsitybranding
What a beautiful story. Thank you. One last rule. ah Rule number 19. In this rule, you talk about not getting caught up in all of the outrage happening all around us. Do you think that’s easier as you to do as you age, not not getting hung up on just the world?

42:24.75
Garrison Keillor
I do, I do. I am sometimes with people who have a keen sense of outrage and I listen to them and they and and what they say makes sense to me.

42:49.76
Garrison Keillor
ah British people who are socialists and who are outraged at the corruption of the Tory party and the corruption of the monarchy and so forth and who a can tell about all of the shameful aspects of English history that the and and and the the country profiting from the slave trade and and so forth and and onward.

43:24.99
varsitybranding
Sure.

43:25.59
Garrison Keillor
and i And I get all of that. It’s history. But I don’t

43:35.45
Garrison Keillor
I don’t share in it. It’s somebody else’s outrage.

43:44.02
varsitybranding
Sure.

43:44.11
Garrison Keillor
And I don’t want to be diverted from what I feel I was put here for. Everybody’s here for a reason.

43:56.12
Garrison Keillor
And and we don’t pick up our reason by admiring great, the great people.

44:05.09
varsitybranding
Interesting.

44:05.85
Garrison Keillor
oh When I was in eighth grade, I got a copy of A.J. Liebling and I loved his writing for The New Yorker. and And I wanted to be him. Well, I’m not. And and so I put that ah put that aside. For a time, I wanted to be Franz Kafka when I was in college, but I’m not. So I want to focus on doing what I was put here for and and not waste, not waste anything.

44:40.80
varsitybranding
<unk>s That’s wonderful. Now, is there anything about the aging process that surprised you?

44:49.53
Garrison Keillor
I find that though the decline of agility is is just is just not a problem.

45:02.00
Garrison Keillor
I remember what it felt like to be young I don’t run anymore. I suppose I could, but it doesn’t bother me that I can’t.

45:14.69
Garrison Keillor
I have some some balance problems, but but you simply deal with them.

45:21.43
varsitybranding
Sure.

45:21.92
Garrison Keillor
My eyesight is still pretty good. I have a kind of a drooping eyelid, but but i you you make accommodations for it.

45:35.18
varsitybranding
Sure, sure. and

45:37.10
Garrison Keillor
But life gets smaller. Life gets smaller. And and i I accept that so long as I can still do what I feel I ah need to do.

45:49.85
varsitybranding
Talk a little about that. What do you mean by life gets smaller? I can imagine, but I’m curious to understand what you mean by that.

45:56.83
Garrison Keillor
I am not nearly as interested in travel as I used to be. I will go anyplace to work. i will I will go off to Minot, North Dakota, and do a show. I think nothing of it. I take a taxi out to LaGuardia, and I have work to do, sitting, waiting,

46:25.83
Garrison Keillor
in at at the gate and I get on a plane and I’ll sit and work and I work all the time.

46:36.31
Garrison Keillor
So travel to work does not mean anything.

46:40.53
varsitybranding
Interesting.

46:41.38
Garrison Keillor
I have no i have no interest in going back to Italy. I’ve been I’ve been there. I ah don’t have any curiosity about it. ah Asia. i’ve I’ve never really, I’ve never been to Asia. And at one time I felt this was a terrible deficit and now it isn’t. I’ve never been to South America.

47:07.28
Garrison Keillor
I have done a few ocean cruises I don’t need to do anymore.

47:17.00
Garrison Keillor
But I could continue.

47:17.08
varsitybranding
That’s something I’ve never done is a cruise.

47:19.51
Garrison Keillor
It’s a long, it’s a long list.

47:19.67
varsitybranding
Sure.

47:22.09
Garrison Keillor
But I wake up every morning with this sense of, of purpose. And to me, this is, this is absolutely beautiful and all that I need.

47:35.21
varsitybranding
That’s wonderful. That’s great. Now, Andy Rooney once said, the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone. But the idea of getting old doesn’t appeal to anyone. How do you feel about that statement?

47:47.57
Garrison Keillor
I disagree. i I like to be old. I think it’s humorous. and And I like to i’d like to ah comment on it, especially to younger people.

48:03.27
Garrison Keillor
and and i think that they And I think they regard this with curiosity.

48:03.47
varsitybranding
That’s great.

48:10.13
Garrison Keillor
And I think that’s a healthy thing. I think that i think that every person in their 20s should have somebody in his or her 80s to pay attention to. I’m not sure that I did actually when I was in my 20s.

48:34.61
Garrison Keillor
I had a grandfather who died at 73. People were dying young back then.

48:38.34
varsitybranding
Mm.

48:39.76
Garrison Keillor
And my my grandmother lived to be 84. I remember sitting with her when John Glenn made his flight.

48:53.57
Garrison Keillor
and And she watched this with great enthusiasm and was sure that man would go to the moon.

49:03.70
Garrison Keillor
My grandmother was born in 1880 and she still was disappointed that her father refused to take her to the 19, no, the 1893 Chicago Exposition.

49:24.97
Garrison Keillor
She had wanted so badly to go to see a ferris wheel, to see a moving sidewalk, to see other moving vehicles oh and and she was so disappointed.

49:33.47
varsitybranding
Wow.

49:39.58
Garrison Keillor
She was a very forward-looking person who nonetheless had been a farm wife and ah was a wonderful baker ah working with a wood-burning stove. and but But she looked forward to two two progress. She believed in progress.

50:05.56
varsitybranding
That’s great. That’s great. Well, you’ve had such an interesting career with your radio shows, your standup tours, as well as your writing. Which do you prefer, standing in front of an audience or writing at your kitchen table? Which feeds your soul?

50:19.96
Garrison Keillor
I can do sitting at the table anytime I choose. You only get an audience when you’re invited to do it. And so that’s so that’s a piece of luck. But sitting at a table is always is always available.

50:40.85
varsitybranding
That’s great. that That’s great. Now, and I find it interesting. you Earlier in the discussion, you referenced yourself as a stand-up comedian. And I know I’ve been seeing that in some of your you know recent writings and your blogs and emails and such. I always thought of you as as a storyteller. Not that the two are necessarily at odds with each other, but have you always considered yourself a stand-up comedian?

51:05.35
Garrison Keillor
No, no, no, I would never ah would never presume stand-up comedy is a real art. And and ah and and there’s ah and it’s a particular gift. I have a niece, Erica Rhodes, who is 40 and is a fabulous stand-up comic. I admire her.

51:33.04
Garrison Keillor
so much. She was just did Late Night with Stephen Colbert and and she’s got a she’s got a big future ahead of her.

51:38.04
varsitybranding
Oh really?

51:44.10
Garrison Keillor
i’m I am a big fan of hers so I don’t put myself in that same category. But I go out on stage when I do this solo show and I am standing up and the

52:00.18
Garrison Keillor
The territory between stand up and story is a movable boundary. and so you And so you can move back and forth. I don’t want to be stuck in the position of being a narrator. I want to be able to speak in my own voice, even as I’m telling a story about invented characters. And so you you you keep you keep going back and forth.

54:47.43
varsitybranding
one but i love that One last question. We’ll end each episode of Roundtable Talk with this. What have you learned that you wish you could have told your younger self?

54:58.57
Garrison Keillor
Mm, mm, mm, mm.

55:04.56
Garrison Keillor
i wish that I wish that I had stopped drinking when I was 25.

55:15.11
varsitybranding
Hm.

55:15.55
Garrison Keillor
I think that would have been more than enough. Some people can do it, I guess, I guess. But I wish I had, I wish I had stopped doing damage to myself. I have other regrets, but you know, I don’t know how to separate them, separate them out. I think

55:46.61
Garrison Keillor
That was one thing I could have done better and thus had more time to fulfill the purpose, whatever I was put here for, because the truth is, life is not long enough.

55:53.37
varsitybranding
Hmm.

56:03.69
Garrison Keillor
It simply is not.

56:05.73
varsitybranding
Well, that’s beautiful. A great way to end. So when can we expect your new Lake Wobgan book?

56:14.27
Garrison Keillor
Well, I have an agent who’s waiting for it. And if a publisher wants it, fine. But if a publisher does not want it, I’ll publish it myself without any hesitation, in which case, I’ll probably come out in the spring.

56:35.01
varsitybranding
OK, well, we’ll look forward to that.

56:36.74
Garrison Keillor
All right.

56:37.12
varsitybranding
And Garrison, Ken, thank you enough for your time today. It’s been a a true pleasure. Safe travels as you crisscross the country doing doing your show.

56:46.26
Garrison Keillor
Thank you so much.

56:48.01
varsitybranding
All right, and thanks, everybody, for joining us for the first episode of Roundtable Talk.